


New Nation

by KifuSlick



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dystopia, F/M, Major Character Injury, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, this story has a mind of its own with no ending in sight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 58,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24324871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KifuSlick/pseuds/KifuSlick
Summary: Kurt wanted to help the Avengers when a mass breakout began, but Scott held him and the X-Men back. The villains tore the Avengers apart, then proceeded to take over the governments of the world. They set their own interests first, letting the rest of the world fall into crisis for their entertainment and benefit. Kurt left the X-Men to fight for the people, no longer willing to let anyone tell him what he can't do, hoping to do more good on his own than with a team. The world of pain breaks him slowly, takes his will to fight with every loss. What can one man do against an organized net of villains?
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

„Mein Gott,“ Kurt whispered. Similar whispers of discontent washed across the room, but no one was willing to raise their voice.

The television flashed pictures of the high level super-powered prison. Rubble fell from all around, terrifying and ferocious figures danced atop the prison, and the anchor lady continued to look backwards and around, her shoulders hunched out of fear.

“The Avengers are already on the scene,” she explained in a higher voice than normal, “fighting to control the breakout. So far, there isn’t much change. Reports of loosed villains are spreading around like wildfire –”

Kurt turned away from the screen, pushed past Logan, and made his way over to Scott. “I don’t think they can handle this on their own,” he told the man in a low voice. He didn’t need the whole room overhearing him.

“By the time we get there, the fight will either be won or lost,” Scott countered.

“So if the Avengers do fail … shouldn’t we be there to help clean up the mess? Not exactly our M.O., but don’t you think that may clarify our image to the nation?”

Scott shook his head. “If the Avengers fail and we’re there, we’ll be targeted just as badly as the men and women that broke out.”

“Not by our friends,” Kurt insisted. “Scott, we need to be there. This affects all of us, not just the Avengers. We have some people locked away in that prison that would love to take another swing at us.”

Logan came up beside Kurt and clapped him on the shoulder. Kurt’s knees buckled, but he was able to maintain his balance without problem. “Elf, they’re gettin’ some back into their cells. They have it under control.”

Kurt shot Logan a skeptical look. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah.”

Scott cleared his throat. “We should all get back to work. The jet still needs some work done to it, right Kurt?”

“She can still fly clear,” Kurt replied.

“Yet it still isn’t finished.”

„Nein,“ Kurt conceded. “I guess I should finish that, oder?”

“Go. Get Rogue to help you out.”

Kurt nodded and walked away from Scott to the other side of the room, where Rogue had made herself at home. Her right leg was draped across the back of one of the chairs, her left leg holding up the majority of her weight. Her eyes remained glued onto the screen of the television, drinking in the updates the news crew had to give. Ororo stood to Rogue’s right and Remy sat at the edge of the chair, leaning forward with rapt attention.

“Rogue.”

Rogue’s neck snapped around to look Kurt in the face. Once she recognized Kurt’s face, she settled down. “What’s up, ‘Crawler?”

“Mind to give me some help on the jet?” he asked.

Remy looked around as well, much more slowly than Rogue had. “Need an extra hand?”

Rogue shrugged. “Sure, sugah.” Her voice sounded confident, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she turned back around to watch for continuous updates on the news channel.

Kurt’s eyes followed Rogue’s for a moment before he realized Remy had even spoken to him. “The two of us should be okay. Thanks, Remy.”

“Ya,” Remy replied flatly. “I’ll come down an’ give you da big updates.”

“I don’t know if I could handle that,” Kurt said.

“Rogue?” Remy asked.

“Ah can get them later.”

Giving up on the two of them, Remy shrugged a shoulder and turned back in his chair. Rogue waited for the end of the current commercial to end, rose to her feet, and followed Kurt out of the door. “Awful terrible goin’ on over there,” Rogue commented once they were out of the room.

„Ja,“ Kurt agreed shortly. “I don’t think we should be standing around idle. Scott’s giving us busy work. It isn’t right.”

“You talked to Scott?” Rogue asked rhetorically. “Ah guess he knows best. Tactical leader an’ all that.”

“That’s the thing,” Kurt argued, his voice raising ever so slightly as their feet took them down the hallway. His hands jutted out in front of him as he talked, the muscles rigid with his tension. “I don’t think he’s making the right decision. We could be over there in a couple hours and helping clean up this mess. We’re supposed to be super heroes, nicht wahr?”

“Some super heroes we always turn out t’ be. One look at you an’ you send people screamin’. Ah touch someone an’ Ah might kill ‘em.”

“Okay, and when have we ever let that stop us? We’re good people, Rogue. We do what we think is right.”

The two of them paused as they waited for the elevator doors to open at Kurt’s touch. Rogue avoided Kurt’s looks as they entered the small room and she continued to avert her eyes as they stood in opposing corners. She leaned into the corner of the room. Kurt stood firmly by the control panel, taking a wide stance to compensate for the movements.

“I don’t think this is right.”

“An’ you’ve made that clear, Kurt,” Rogue replied sharply. “Ah don’t know what you think Ah can do. Go up an’ beat Scott’s ass until we’re in California?” Rogue lifted her face to direct a piercing look in his direction.

Kurt’s posture slumped. “No. That wouldn’t work.”

“Right. So we’re gonna do what Scott told us to do an’ wait for Remy to come down an’ give us updates. We ain’t gonna worry ‘bout it.”

Kurt didn’t say anything again as the elevator descended and the doors opened up upon the arrival to their floor. He led the way out and to the hanger where the jet was stored and waiting for maintenance.

“So what’s the problem?” Rogue asked.

Kurt shrugged. “I was going to fix up the stabilizers. The jet’s a little choppy on take-off and touch-down. Most of everything else the last time we had her out is up-to-date. I’ve put a few hours into her.”

“An’ what do you want me to do?”

“Liebchen, do I look like I have fingers for fine-tuning?” Kurt held up his hands with a half-assed smile, his pointed teeth shining too brightly through the grin. “I can get myself on up there to work on the pieces, but the parts that need help are much too small. Other parts too heavy.”

“Kurt, you’re hopeless,” Rogue retorted.

„Na ja,“ Kurt sighed. “That’s what you get for being a freak.”

Rogue situated herself so that she was directly underneath the panel Kurt needed under. She gave it a long, hard stare before turning back to the blue mutant. “Ah bettah not hear any of that from you, Sugah.”

Kurt teleported out of her line of sight, reappearing above Rogue, his adhesive fingers and toes gripping onto the smooth metal of the jet’s fuselage. “No, really. My fingers are so fat and few.” Kurt wouldn’t let Rogue win this one. Wallowing in self-pity wasn’t usually his style, but he figured it was a slightly better idea than having the fight at the prison at the back of his mind. Happiness wasn’t on the menu.

“Think you can hand me … something to get this panel off? I forgot to grab my tools.”

“It’d be faster for you to get them yourself,” Rogue pointed out. Even so, she was already inches above the floor and floating to the side of the hangar where all the spare parts and repair tools were organized.

„Doch,“ Kurt argued lightly. “Besides, we can’t have you feeling worthless.”

“Wouldn’t grabbing Sean be a better idea?” Rogue asked.

Kurt relinquished his hands’ grasp on the jet and shrugged. “I guess he’s out. Danke.” Standing up to his full height, Kurt reached for the wrench in Rogue’s hand. Squatting down again, he set to work on removing the panel.

“Um, Rogue?”

“Huh?”

“Once I release these bolts, this panel’s coming down. Hard.”

“Are you asking for help?”

„Ja.“

Floating up to level herself with Kurt, Rogue held her hands above her head to hold the sheet in place as Kurt finished taking out the last two bolts. The weight shifted slightly in her hands, cuing her to take the piece down to the ground.

“’Ey, you two in here?” Remy’s voice rang out in the cavernous hangar.

“Nein. We’re on vacation,” Kurt replied sarcastically.

“’Fraid I got some bad news.”

In a flash of a second, Kurt jumped off of the bottom of the jet, twisted in mid-air, and landed lithely on the ground. “What?”

“Our side lost.”

Silence dragged out between the three persons present.

“What do you mean, Remy?” Rogue asked. Her voice was almost serene.

Remy opened his mouth, but no words came out. His hands floated in front of him as if he was going to paint a scene, but they dropped back down by his side. “Stark is dead. Da Captain is prisoner. An’ … we lost. Da Avengers went down.”

“The prisoners?” Kurt barely managed more than a raspy whisper.

“Free.”

“Oh Gawd,” Rogue cried, turning away from Remy. Her hands flew up to her face, cradling her cheeks. “Oh Gawd.”

“What do we do?” Kurt asked. He didn’t know if he was asking Remy or not.

“I dunno, but I think we run.”


	2. Chapter 2

Kurt sat perched at the edge of an old Berlin building. The broken road stories below him was empty. Tall, prickling weeds pushed out from the cracks in the pavement, with smaller and leafier plants filling in the spaces. Decaying paper, plastic, and other litter lined buildings where the wind didn’t reach as well. Some of the stone structures sported rotting wood over the windows as if to protect what was inside. Kurt knew the efforts were futile. Other shops and homes didn’t bother with their windows. Most were broken or cracked, but the buildup of grime on the glass spoke enough.

Berlin was far from abandoned. Curious animals too shy or scared to venture into the sprawling capitol had hardened their resolve. It wasn’t uncommon to see smaller wildlife in the middle of the city, poking its nose around or skittering about. People still lived here, but they didn’t move freely about like before. Through the dirty glass windows, one usually would find curtains or mini-blinds permanently obstructing view into the living space. Anyone that would walk the street moved with false confidence. 

Quiet fury burned deep within Kurt over the past many months. He did nothing to stop this outcome under Scott’s dismissive command. His people of Germany – indeed, of the world – suffered for the X-Men’s lack of action. The team had disintegrated since, and Kurt returned home to Europe.

Even with the change in world regime, and Kurt’s unhidden efforts against the Nation, the general populace looked at the blue mutant with scorn. Humans had more spiteful ammunition against their special cousins and didn’t appreciate Kurt’s presence in fear of alliance to the Nation. He was one of Them, after all, and all mutants must have allegiance pledged to the tyrants. It was completely fabricated to justify their fears and Kurt did not pity them.

Kurt had to watch his back and all sides to stay alive. If the Nation were to catch him, he would expect he’d be found as an enemy of the Nation and be taken prisoner or executed. Neither appealed to him. If a human aligned with the group called the Human Backbone were to find him, they’d hunt him down until his head was on a platter. Kurt imagined the scenario wouldn’t play out much differently than Kurt’s life in the freak show part of the circus – or when he’d been blamed for a villager’s death before Charles Xavier found him. Between the two extremes, Kurt knew that anyone he helped could rat him out for personal gain.

Some people began to move about as the sun came up. Dawn, for whatever reason, was a prime time for the exchanges of black market. The Nation’s soldiers weren’t yet out in mass until the sun shone strongly at later early morning. Kurt watched over their backs until he saw signs of the Nation and then made his retreat to where he hid. Kurt would protect against civil dispute and Nation harassment at night, but couldn’t stay up all day to meddle in their affairs. He’d be identified and slaughtered if he’d pull such a stunt. Kurt had the unique ability to become one with the nighttime shadows to remain at large. He used that to his advantage.

The progression of lighting halted as the sun reached over the distant edge of clouds. Kurt had felt the oppression of damp air throughout the night, but a storm wouldn’t break. With the gift of daylight to brighten the sky, Kurt finally saw what he sensed. The last thing he wanted was to be wet. While the dark clouds didn’t look too heavy, he didn’t chance a sudden downpour.

In a flash and puff of brimstone, Kurt was no longer conducting surveillance over the street, but squatting in his bunker. Removing travel from Kurt’s life by teleportation helped him stay away from the Nation’s maw. He popped up in unexpected areas and immediately vacated when his life was at stake. He could fight, he could protect, but avoiding conflict was in his best interest.

He didn’t share his space with anyone else. Either no one wanted to be around him or Kurt couldn’t find anyone he could trust. Kurt’s blue, fuzzy skin, prehensile tail, and fanged teeth caused any human to shy away from him. It didn’t matter if he helped them out. On the flip side, Kurt had enough people take advantage of his friendly personality in the year since the Nation took over. With Scott’s blunder, Kurt couldn’t depend on another’s leadership. Yet Kurt wasn’t ready to be a leader himself, even with his experience with Excalibur, those years ago.

His recent place of sleep was bleak. After the villains took over governments, Kurt didn’t have much chance to return to the Americas and pack his meager belongings. If the X-Mansion still existed after enemy raids in the early stages of the New Nation, Kurt didn’t want his things anyway. Posters, street clothes, and unhandled swords weren’t going to help anyone. Now, all Kurt kept was a change of clothes, a relatively clean blanket, a notebook of surveillance notes, and a cheap hoard of pens. With fewer possessions, it was harder to carelessly leave things behind and easier to make a quick getaway.

Currently, Kurt resided in an old, abandoned castle. Germany had enough of them that the government didn’t want anything to do with them. Some of the lesser villains preferred the security of the stone while others collected lavish possessions in distant mansions. All were greedy and power-hungry, regardless. Kurt liked exploring the history of his own country through the rooms. Most items were missing or broken, but enough was left to intrigue him.

Through the modest window installed in Kurt’s chosen room, he could see that the clouds finally broke. He sent thanks to his good fortune. The drops fell in small clusters, slowly. So long as a storm didn’t accompany the precipitation, the former Nightcrawler would have a peaceful night.

A piercing scream broke Kurt out of his barren dreams. He blinked out of confusion until the woman screamed again. He recognized pain and fear in her panicked calls. Clambering to all fours, whipping his ratty blanket aside, Kurt teleported into the antechamber at the great front door. A distraught woman in wet, clingy clothes and a young man with a similar disheveled appearance wandered urgently around the great room. When Kurt arrived, the man was towing the woman around, guiding her to a place to rest. Mixed with the rain water was a fair amount of blood from some unknown origin on the woman’s body.

„Mein Gott, hilfe mich,“ she begged. Sobs found their way into her voice.

„Behruhig,“ the man replied calmly. His body language, on the other hand, betrayed his panic. Along with continuously checking the young woman over for her injuries, he glanced back at the door and around the room. Someone caused this and may still be after the couple.

Kurt stepped out from the dark corner he had teleported into. „Entschuldegung, meine Freunden,“ Kurt announced. Hopefully simply asking for their attention wouldn’t send them into a frenzied panic.

The woman screamed even before she caught sight of Kurt. Upon seeing his obvious mutant stature, she screamed harder and moved to scramble away. The man yelled at him, threatening him. „Come closer and I swear I’ll kill you,“ he warned in German.

„I’m not here to hurt you,“ Kurt replied in the same tongue. „Is someone after you?“

„Get out of here.“ The man wasn’t listening to Kurt. Even with Kurt’s hands out prone in the air, he was on the defensive. Meanwhile, his partner was throwing herself into a panic attack. Now that mutants and other super powered beings with an ego took over the world, like any cliché villain aspired to do, humans had an even harder time accepting Kurt’s kind.

„I wish to help, sir,“ Kurt persisted.

„You’ve helped enough, freak.“ The man growled like Kurt’s old friend, Logan, and placed himself well between Kurt and the woman.

„You’re in my castle and I have some medical background,“ Kurt continued. He didn’t want to define the structure as his property or express superiority, just explain his presence to the pair. At this rate, the woman would bleed out. She continued to whimper and scramble in the background for whatever reason, the pain evident on her face. „She needs help.“

„Not by your kind.“ The man expressed typical human behavior. He was being reasonable, yet it was still frustrating.

Kurt stepped forward, trying to make himself less threatening. „Please, I can only help.“

Without verbally answering him this time, the strange man dashed forward in attack. A primal growl escaped his mouth as he lunged to punch. Kurt side stepped with ease. The man looked confused in his stance for a heartbeat when he realized his fist didn’t connect with its target. Kurt vaguely heard the girl scream behind him. Overcoming his hesitation, he turned around and tried again. Kurt ducked under his clumsily thrown punch and sidled behind him. „I will not hurt you.“

„Dietmar, bitte. Hӧr auf!“ Her voice wasn’t as strong as it was before.

„She needs help,“ Kurt persisted.

Only fury shone through the man’s eyes. He was bested by a blue fuzzy freak and he didn’t enjoy the humiliation. He tried a different tactic and threw an uppercut at Kurt’s temporarily stationary form. Again, Kurt dodged the blow with ease.

„Stop it,“ the woman begged. „The others are going to find us.“

„Others?“ Kurt repeated. „Did someone hurt you?“

„Shut up,“ the man snapped. He held up his fists as if to strike again but didn’t. Kurt could see the fighting calculation in his eyes, yet he was weary to be bested again. His stance on Kurt’s involvement, on the other hand, was unwavering.

Kurt glanced back and forth between the hesitant Dietmar and frightened woman. He didn’t owe these people anything, but if he abandoned them now, all his efforts within the last year would be for naught. „Sie sind ein Dummkopf,“ Kurt muttered impatiently under his breath.

„What?“ Dietmar demanded. Of course, now he listened, when Kurt didn’t want him to hear what he said.

„I cannot help you if you do not help yourself,“ Kurt told him. „I cannot help her, understand?“

„I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help. Go back to where you came from!“ He took a step forward, closer in Kurt’s range of motion, yet he didn’t strike again. Kurt remained alert, but assumed a relaxed position. Exuding anything but pacifism could tip this situation from bad to worse.

Deciding not to comment on Dietmar’s demand, Kurt also took a step backward. It brought him closer to the woman, but displayed submission simultaneously. He hunched downwards, bringing himself closer to the stone ground. He depended further on his tail to balance himself than before, which he had tried to not bring attention to earlier. Fuzzy blue skin and pointy teeth were alarming enough.

„Leave!“ he shouted. This time, after standing around idle but full of threats, he quickly covered the ground between the two of them. He swung another punch, which Kurt dodged as easily as the ones previously, but threw an off-hand jab with his other hand as well. The second fist caught Kurt in the gut, throwing his balance backwards and landing him backwards on his tail. He snaked his tail underneath him, brushing the floor with it so that he could push himself back into a squatting position. Dietmar turned around like a wild bull, squaring his body in Kurt’s direction.

„I cannot leave, for you are in my home,“ Kurt insisted. His words came out breathier than he expected. He didn’t feel out of breath from the blow.

Dietmar bellowed in a wordless, feral scream, but Kurt thought he heard another noise right before his fit of rage. His ear pricked toward the door, alerting him to something on the other side. „Remember when you mentioned that someone may be following you?“ Kurt asked politely. Dietmar seemed not to notice, but he could see the lady’s flash of alarm from behind him. „I think they’re here. I can get you two to safety.“

„Why do you continue trying to help us?“ the lady asked. Kurt grabbed Dietmar’s attention well enough so that he broke his predatory gaze on him and looked out into the stormy weather.

„Because helping is what I do,“ Kurt told her. „Are you okay?“

„No. My stomach is bleeding.“ Kurt’s heart sank. Stomach wounds were terribly fickle creatures and he didn’t think he had the know-how to take care of one. It might help if he also knew the cause.

„Dietmar, listen to me,“ Kurt begged. „I can take you somewhere they can’t – “

Kurt was cut off when a platoon of men burst into the castle’s door, dripping fiercely onto the stone floor. They held knives and small guns easily hidden under clothing to protect them from the weather. Kurt hated dealing with guns.

„Nightcrawler,“ one of the Nation hissed. However the man knew him didn’t matter. If he knew Kurt, then he would also know that Kurt was fully against their side. „Take out the mutant!“ he trumpeted.

„Sheiße!“ Kurt gasped under his breath. Men with pistols pulled them out and took poor aim on the mutant, pulling the trigger before they had him fully within their sights. Dietmar yelled and covered his head, running further into the castle to get away. In his fight for self-preservation, he completely left his companion and foe behind. Kurt, on the other hand, pushed himself toward the lady, grabbing her roughly for simple contact so that he could teleport her away. „I’m sorry,“ he told her right before they ended up in a different room: Kurt’s room.

Teleporting other people with him caused a lot of strain on both his and her bodies. She passed out, her body already weak from the wound in her lower torso. Kurt gently lowered her to the ground so that she wouldn’t hit her head. Kurt was more used to the strain on his body, having teleported many people over many years. The effort it took to move her a few hundred feet in a split second was akin to someone running with her on their back in the same distance. If that someone was conditioned, they could do it with ease.

While the lady was out cold, Kurt decided to take a look at what he was dealing with so that he could help fix her up. He lifted her shirt just enough so that he could see the source of the blood. She was wrong. It wasn’t her stomach that was pierced, but appeared to be more to the side where her spleen was. The spleen wasn’t something he wanted to deal with, either. She need its functions to continue breathing properly. „Sheiße,“ he repeated. He lunged across the room and grabbed his clean shirt that he had laying beside his makeshift bed. He bit the fabric, pulling it, until it ripped into a long strip. He continued to pull it apart until he only had strips left. He used one strip to stuff into the wound, immediately winding another around her body and pulling it tight. He didn’t have anything else to help her out. Once she was bandaged up, he picked her up and set her on top of his blanket, pulling the free half over top of her to keep her warmer. „I’ll be right back,“ he promised her.

Kurt whipped around, careful to pick up his tail so that he didn’t slap her body with it. With a powerful release of his muscles, he launched himself forward, darting up a wall and crawling along them as he made his way through the castle. He needed to find Dietmar.

The first sign of life in the hallways happened to be a pair of Nation goons. Kurt heard them before they saw him, but they acted as if Kurt’s position on the walls was the best discovery in their life. One pointed up at Kurt, shouting in excitement, holding a longer dagger in his other hand. The other followed his partner’s gesture and lifted a pistol into the air. He took better care to aim than everyone had in the castle’s antechamber. Kurt teleported at the same time he heard a shot ring out from the pistol. The sound was deafening. Kurt reappeared behind the man, immediately wrapping his tail around his waist to throw him to the ground. The other man had to recover from shock with Kurt’s disappearance before he could act appropriately. By the time Kurt kicked the gun out of the first man’s hand, leaped over his body to grab it, and resituated himself to aim at the second man, he only managed to turn around.

“Oh.”

„Put the knife down,“ Kurt ordered. He flicked his gun downwards before pointing it back at the man’s chest. The other goon flexed to get up, but Kurt swatted him back down with his tail.

The man set the dagger down, kicking it down the hallway away from the three of them. „Danke,“ Kurt said. In two swift movements, he pistol whipped the man on the ground and cracked a hard-hitting punch to the second man’s head to decommission them. He teleported away, popping up near the knife just long enough to pick it up, and reappeared further down the hallway, out of sight from the pair of goons. He took out enough time from forward momentum to shove the knife into the side of his pants, hoping dearly he wouldn’t slice himself open.

Again, Kurt took to the walls, swooping up toward the ceiling only long enough to deposit the pistol in the rafters. He didn’t have a use for a gun, but he also didn’t want his enemies getting their hands on it. They had more than enough ammunition as it was. Soon enough, Kurt ended up in the castle’s antechamber. No one else was present. Without hesitation, Kurt jumped to the ground, picking the hallway that Dietmar had fled down. He used all fours to cover more ground in a timely manner.

Another pair of Nation soldiers were searching each room in the castle methodically down this hallway. Kurt knew because the doors he carefully kept closed were wide open, the meager relics left in the castle tossed about. He reached the last room to have been opened, popping up in the doorway as he skidded to a stop. „Searching for me?“ he taunted.

„Get him!“ the same man that had known Kurt’s show name shouted.

„Who? Me?“ Kurt asked innocently. His answer came quickly enough. Both these men had pistols, but their aims were only as good as displayed in the antechamber. Kurt launched himself upwards, crawling into the dark rafters for camouflage. „Is that the best you can do?“ he called from the dark. He knew that if he was careful, they wouldn’t be able to see him at all.

„Show yourself, coward!“

„Am I the coward?“ Kurt asked them. „I’m not the one hiding behind a gun.“ In a puff of brimstone, he appeared behind one of the men, grabbing him forcefully from behind. The man let out a freak shot into the room without aiming, barely missing his partner. „I hope you counted your shots. I think you are out.“

The soldier dropped his gun, reaching backwards to claw at the mutant holding him hostage. His partner lifted his pistol, trying to take aim behind the squirming man. „Don’t shoot me!“ his partner cried.

„Drop it,“ Kurt demanded. He pulled the knife out from his beltline with his tail, transferring it to his dominant hand. He held it up to the man’s throat. They didn’t need to know that Kurt wouldn’t kill him, but he would certainly make it look that way.

The soldier hesitated and strengthened his grip on the pistol, using both hands instead of one. „Please,“ his partner pleaded. „I don’t want to die.“

„Let him go,“ the soldier with the gun demanded.

„Or?“ Kurt prompted.

„I will kill you.“

“You will kill me anyway,“ Kurt pointed out. Kurt bent low at the knees, switching his hold on the knife in his hand so that he didn’t accidentally slice into the man’s throat. Grabbing onto his shirt with his free hand, Kurt flipped him over his back, sending him tumbling to the ground. Tossing his knife upwards, Kurt caught it with his tail and darted forward on all fours toward the second man. He altered his pattern so that he couldn’t take aim. The man hesitated to shoot until Kurt had already grabbed his wrist with both hands, throwing the barrel toward the rafters. They struggled for a moment until Kurt felt the man feebly punch at his chest. It hurt, but didn’t do any real damage. Kurt angled his body, throwing all his weight into the soldier until he lost his balance. The gun clattered across the floor and Kurt landed heavily the soldier’s side. He bounced up in a somersault, easily landing on his feet and whipping around. The last soldier groaned on the ground, but the other one had grabbed his gun, taking aim at Kurt. He squeezed off a shot before Kurt could teleport away. He felt hot pain enter and exit his shoulder, but at least the wound was clean.

Kurt popped up behind the last soldier on his feet, sending a punch at his lower back, aiming for his kidney. He went down with barely a cry of pain. „What did I say?“ Kurt asked.

He took his time in leaving the room, inspecting his shoulder as he walked. Hot blood seeped from the wound, but it didn’t appear to have hit anything really important. Kurt could still feel his fingers on that arm. He had more important things to worry about at the moment.

Running on all fours wasn’t as much an option to Kurt as it was before. Instead, he took to running down the hallways, working at a slower pace so that he didn’t exhaust himself. For some reason, he found it harder to use two limbs instead of four when trying to move quickly. He eventually ended up in the castle’s kitchen, which was clear of the soldiers. To save time, he teleported back to the antechamber and took the last hallway to the right.

Kurt didn’t count the number of soldiers that burst into the castle behind the couple, but if he had to guess, a half dozen would have made them up. If that were the case, he only had another couple of men to take down before the castle would be more or less secure. Then he could focus his efforts on finding Dietmar and getting the lady to a place that could help her. Both tasks were dangerous, possibly more dangerous than finding the known enemies.

Kurt navigated the last hallway at a walk, pressing his thumb into the wound to better staunch the bleeding. It hurt like a thousand bees stinging him all at the same time, over and over again, but he did it anyway. He could be comforted in knowing that the bullet was gone, though, and that he didn’t need to worry about it getting embedded in his flesh and causing an infection. If he could find someone to sew him back up, he’d be good as new in a couple weeks. He’d lay low for a while until it healed well enough that he didn’t have to worry about it getting dirty.

Instead of finding the pair of soldiers, Kurt ran across Dietmar again. He came at him with a knife poised dramatically over his head, shouting at the top of his lungs like a madman. Kurt ducked and threw himself forward, shooting through Dietmar’s legs and tripping him up with his tail. The man fell with a heavy thud, taking his time in getting to his feet.

„Did you take care of the other two?“ Kurt asked. He stood at his full height, looking down at Dietmar. He offered his hand to the man to help him to his feet.

Dietmar didn’t look too happy to be in Kurt’s presence again. He batted Kurt’s hand to the side, but didn’t attack him again. Kurt thought he was making progress. He didn’t even lunge at Kurt again when he lumbered to his feet, grunting and growling to himself as he did so. Dietmar turned to regard Kurt, a scowl plain across his face, but acted more complacent. „Ja, zwei.“

„I got the other four before I found you. I also took your girlfriend to safety. She needs to see someone quickly.“

„She’s not my girlfriend!“ Dietmar shouted. He bristled up as if he was going to strike at Kurt again, but held himself in place. His fists bunched up angrily by his sides, his fingers working out the rage.

„Es tut mir Leid,“ Kurt apologized. „Friend?“

„Sister.“

Kurt felt a heavy weight drop onto his chest. He didn’t have a whole lot to family growing up, but he knew how important family was. The X-Men turned out to be his family once Professor Xavier took him in. „You better come quick,“ Kurt suggested. „I can teleport us there – “

„I’m walking.“ Dietmar pushed past Kurt to walk down the hallway to get to the antechamber. Kurt had to jog to get beside him again in order to lead the way. Once Kurt was back in his line of view, Dietmar increased his pace to match Kurt’s until they reached where Kurt was staying. Dietmar shoved Kurt with his forearm, flashing to his sister’s side and falling into a kneeling position beside her. She was still out cold, as were the guards further down the hallway that Kurt had dispatched earlier.

„Dietmar, do you know of anyone that can help her? As you can imagine, I haven’t made very many friends.“ Kurt needed to press the urgency onto the young man so that they didn’t lose her.

„Ja …“ Dietmar said uncertainly. „Ich glaube schon.“

„She should not be moved. Whomever you know needs to be brought here. Go get them. I’ll make sure that the soldiers don’t attack again.“

„Why should I trust you?“ Dietmar asked. He turned around at the waist to level a glare at the blue mutant, but hand still held his sister’s. He really cared for her, but still did not trust Kurt.

„I’ve done all I could. I brought her to safety and you to her. You will have to trust me off of that.“ Kurt stepped away from the door, giving Dietmar room to leave if he wished. „You must act fast if you wish to save her.“

Dietmar turned his gaze back to his sister and leaned down to kiss the hand that he held. Gently setting it down on top of her chest, he rose to his feet. His shoulders were hunched and his eyes were cast down, but only for a moment. He strode forward strongly, pointing aggressively at Kurt when he passed. „You better be gone when I get back,“ he said.

„As you wish,“ Kurt replied with a respectful bow. Dietmar left the room, leaving Kurt to watch over his sister.

Kurt squatted beside her, checking her relative temperature with his hand. She felt a little warmer than necessary, but nothing alarming yet. If Dietmar hurried, she could still make it without a hiccup. Kurt stroked her hand and fingers, trying to be comforting even though she was unconscious. He stayed in that position for what felt like an eternity, periodically checking on the heat coming off her forehead and taking her pulse. Her breathing stayed consistent.

Footsteps rang through the hallway, pulling Kurt away from the girl. As they approached, Kurt could tell that they weren’t the soldiers’. The soldiers wore heavy leather boots, and while they weren’t uniform, they were consistent out of the six. There were two sets of steps, and Kurt could feel the urgency from them as they came closer. Dietmar was back with help.

Kurt scrambled to gather up his pens and notebook, grabbing the rest of his extra clothes that he hadn’t used on Dietmar’s sister. He couldn’t very well grab his blanket from her, so his belongings were effectively cut in half. Holding everything in one arm, Kurt scaled the wall nearest him and crawled into the rafters seconds before Dietmar and his friend burst into the room. They panted heavily.

„Are you still alive?“ Dietmar asked with alarm, falling to his knees beside his sister. He turned around to his friend when he determined her life.

„Excuse me,“ his friend said. „I’ll need some space.“ He bent over the girl with a stethoscope in hand, pressing it against her lungs. Next, he examined the wound. His tongue clucked against the roof of his mouth. „Damage to the spleen,“ he observed. That wasn’t news to Kurt. „Gun shot?“ Dietmar nodded. „The bullet still appears to be inside her. No exit wound. Hopefully it didn’t shatter inside. It appeared to miss her ribs on the way in.“

Even though the girl was far from out of the woods, Kurt let go of a heavy sigh. The weight that pressed to his shoulders when he discovered her relation to Dietmar lifted. She was in good hands now. Much better hands than Kurt could offer her. He climbed further into the rafters, bamfing away when he was as high as he could get. He was sure that they could hear the sound from where they were on the ground, but at least Dietmar couldn’t go after him. Kurt just had to make sure that the girl was okay.


	3. Chapter 3

Kurt couldn’t stay still for more than a day after the incident in the castle. When he returned the following day, Dietmar, his sister, and his friend were gone. They hadn’t left any of their possessions – or Kurt’s – behind. Everyone that Kurt had methodically removed from action was also gone. It almost looked like nothing had happened in that large castle, but Kurt and the Nation knew better.

Whenever Kurt tried to settle down for the night, a small patrol disturbed him. They flooded Berlin and regularly ventured out of the city. Kurt knew that they had to be looking for him, for the timing was perfect. Not only that, but mutants with physical giveaways patrolled with them. Kurt had becoming high priority to the Nation leader in old Germany.

Back up didn’t exist. No one was fighting back against the Nation, so there weren’t any organizations that Kurt could fall back to so that he could receive some help. Instead, Kurt had to stay on his toes and keep moving. At times, his luck was so bad that the Nation would find him within hours, pulling him out of his nap. Exhaustion started to nip at Kurt’s body after only a couple days after the incident. The Nation and their searches were relentless, however, even though they had no proof that Kurt was around anymore. The blue mutant scared them. He was a threat that they hadn’t encountered in a long time.

What Kurt found funny was that he didn’t have the upper hand in Germany. He didn’t know the villains or the people. He’d been too far removed in the Americas and he could tell the longer he stayed on German soils. Actually, he didn’t think Germany was Germany anymore. They probably renamed it to something much sillier and moved the borders a few miles so that the worst of the baddies could have fair boundaries.

Kurt didn’t know who was in charge of former Germany. He couldn’t find them, couldn’t learn anything about them, and therefore couldn’t fight him. All he knew was that Magneto went back to his island off of Africa to rule peacefully, or so he claimed. News didn’t bounce around networks as well as it did before Alcatraz fell. Moving around at all was hard enough under the Nation’s influence. Air lines had been shut down quickly, sometimes forcefully by some super powered bad guy’s muscle flex.

Kurt continued his surveillance whenever he could, though he had to switch his timing back during the day. He acquired an over-sized hoodie to hide his features and kept his hands shoved into his pockets whenever others were around. He also found a pair of baggy jeans and a belt to hold them up so that he could more easily tuck away his tail. While his costume wasn’t perfect, it kept immediate suspicion off of him. He could partially roam the streets without raising alarm.

The weather threatened to dump buckets again one week after the incident in the castle. It was too early in the morning for him to return to where he stashed his meager belongings and call it a day, but every part of him didn’t want to stay out in the rain. Whenever the light furring on his body got wet, he had the hardest time getting dry again, especially without adequate shelter and a towel. He was thankful that cleanliness wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list anymore, instead switching back over to survival like before the Industrial Revolution. The only thing was, they had machines to make their life better, but the Nation’s rise negated many of their functions.

Kurt stayed high up on the buildings until drops began to break from the clouds’ bottoms. He scooped the hood of his jacket up from his back and over his ears, pulling the draw strings tighter so that it wouldn’t fall off. Not only was the rain wet, but it was cold. If Kurt stayed out in the weather for too long, he’d be wet for hours, beating himself up when he caught a cold. Getting sick wasn’t exactly what he needed at a time like this.

The sky opened up further, sending freezing drops cascading to the ground in bursts of waves. They weren’t particularly big drops, but Kurt could feel them hit hard against the fabric of his sweatshirt. Below, most of the people outside scrambled to get into buildings, dashing far and wide to get to where they lived. Hanging out anywhere but where you called home could easily bring problems. Only one person stayed behind, but not by choice. She didn’t look like she had a place to go, for she huddled up as tight as she could against the cold brick wall. Even though she made herself as small as she possibly could, it wasn’t enough to keep away from the penetrating rain. Small puddles accumulated fast all around her, and if anyone were to rush by, she’d suffer the spray from the splash.

Kurt leaned forward onto his hands, looking in every direction to see if Nation patrols were near. When he saw no one, he continued his projection downward, gripping onto the walls with the handy mutant stickiness in his hands and feet. He appreciated whatever caused him to adhere to walls.

„Are you alright?“ Kurt asked once he reached the ground. He hopped down to his two legs for the final couple feet.

The girl was already to her feet when Kurt arrived, hugging a bag close to her side. Her features were sharp and hallow, the color in her face nearly a ghostly white. Her eyes fixated on Kurt’s face, searching for his eyes. She also didn’t look afraid or alarmed to see him, which was not very common anymore.

„Miss?“ Kurt prompted.

„Ah, yes. I’m fine.“ She looked defeated under a mop of heavy wet hair and didn’t move to leave.

„Do you have anywhere to go?“ Kurt asked.

She broke eye contact, staring down at her feet for a heartbeat. When she raised her gaze again, she didn’t find his eyes. „No. You’re not Nation, are you?“

„Nein,“ Kurt confirmed. „I am independent.“ She didn’t look uncomfortable, but she didn’t offer further conversation. „Would you be interested in somewhere dry to wait out the storm?“ he offered. „I can see if I can get us in this building.“ He thumbed over to the wall that she had tried to take shelter against.

„I really don’t want to inconvenience you – “

„No inconvenience!“ he insisted. He searched the streets again for signs of Nation. They were clear, but visibility was low. Rain poured hard and fast, throwing up thick mist making it hard for anyone to see. „If you don’t mind physical contact …“

She found his eyes again, but her brow was furrowed. „Entschuldegung?“

Kurt didn’t bother with explaining. He wanted to get out of the rain before he was not only soaked to the skin, but cold to the bone as well. He took a step forward, placed a hand on her shoulder, wrapping his fingers lightly around the curve of her physique, and aimed to teleport inside. He relied heavily on his spatial awareness so that he and the girl didn’t end up in the middle of anything on the other side of the wall.

The girl broke away from him, pushing away with a hefty shove. She immediately bent over, holding herself tightly over the chest. Staying low to the ground, she gradually got her bearings. Teleporting with Kurt wasn’t a very pleasant experience. While Kurt was accustomed to the violent means of travel, and had gradually built up the strength to teleport with passengers without feeling exhausted afterwards, that didn’t mean other people were. Whoever this girl was, she was now subject to the subsequent nausea and sudden drain of energy.

„I’m sorry,“ Kurt apologized quickly. „I should have warned you and waited for your permission.“ He sat down beside her and lowered the hood of his sweatshirt.

„What just happened?“ she asked. „Where are we?“

„We are inside the building,“ Kurt told her. „It’s no secret that I am a mutant thanks to my dashing looks. I don’t just look the part, but have the ability to teleport as well.“ He held out a hand over his chest for her to take. Even though he had scared her and probably made her feel like her stomach would fight her, she didn’t balk at his presence any more than when he first showed his face. She took his hand lightly, revealing just how cold her fingers were. Kurt held back an exclamation as he introduced himself: „My name is Kurt. In costume, I was known as Nightcrawler.“

„You were part of Excalibur, is that so?“

Kurt felt a little piece of the puzzle lock into place. Could she not have panicked because she already recognized his face? Even so, Excalibur was not that public of a team. They didn’t do much more in England than the X-Men did in the Americas.

„That is true,“ Kurt confirmed. He raised the corners of his lips in a soft smile, though he dared not bare his teeth in a large grin. She was comfortable with him now, but he had pushed hard enough for such a short period of time. „It has been a long time since then.“ The fact that it had been so long raised another question. This girl looked like she was no older than her early twenties, yet she recognized Kurt’s face from an old, dead team? Kurt had spent years back in the Americas after Excalibur broke up, and it had been at least another year since the Nation took over. What young teen was so vigilant in keeping up with a small superhero team?

„I wanted to be like you when I was little. I knew I wasn’t a mutant, but I wanted to do good anyway.“ She sighed and dropped her eyes to the ground. She looked ashamed more than anything. „Now look at me.“

„Like me?“ Kurt asked.

The shame cleared up to sheepishness. „Maybe not _you_ you.“

„I see,“ Kurt said. His voice was heavily laden with amusement, but quickly switched back to a more serious tone. „I do not, however, see why you should be ashamed of your state of being. While gifted, or cursed, as I am, I am not much better off than you.“ He paused in speech, coming up with a rather small idea. To even the playing field a little more, he pulled his hoodie over his head, wiggling his arms to release them from the clingy fabric. „Would you like my pullover?“ he asked her. He handed the clump of material over, hoping it wasn’t too wet to keep from helping. „You felt cold when I shook your hand. I have a little more insulation than you.“

She took the hoodie carefully, weighing it in her hands before throwing its arms over her shoulders, using it like a small blanket. It was a start, at the very least. „Danke schön.“ She let the silence hang for a moment before she continued. „I don’t see it that way. You are still out saving people like me because I can’t even take care of myself.“

„I wish it were as simple as that,“ Kurt countered. „I am currently being hunted. I do not know if there is a capture or a kill order on my head, but I know the Nation is looking for me. You are not safe around me. I don’t know how well I will be able to protect you. A hero does not endanger others. He protects others. I am barely holding it together. I am operating on little to no sleep and I cannot remember the last time I’ve had anything to eat.“ He stopped. He didn’t need to dump his problems on this girl. She didn’t need that. He finally had an ear to listen for the first time in months and he was abusing it. If anyone was to vent, this girl had more right. She looked like she had been alone for far too long and she was struggling to hold on anymore. „I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.“

„I have a chocolate bar in my bag,“ she said. She ducked away to dig through it. Kurt hadn’t noticed it beside her earlier. It was small, but it appeared very handy.

„No, no,“ Kurt refused. He held up his hands as a barrier. „I cannot take from you.“

„I insist,“ she pursued. She pulled the candy out from the depths of her cloth bag, turning around to shove it into his open hand. „Please? It would make me feel better.“

Kurt saw the emotion swimming in her eyes. When she said she aspired to be like the superheroes of tale, she meant it. How horrible was the world to crush those noble feelings. There weren’t many people out there like her, yet she was left clinging to the edge of the building with no one and nothing. She wasn’t as much of a fighter, but the world didn’t need so many of those people, at least not without as much heart as this girl possessed.

„Thank-you,“ Kurt said quietly. His posture dropped. Finally, after days of trying to stay strong and together since the castle, he could drop his guard. The Nation would eventually find him – that much was inevitable – but for now he was at peace with another soul.

He softly grabbed the candy bar from her, holding it but not opening it. At the very least, he would not divulge himself in front of her. „I never caught your name.“ He knew very well that she had never offered any personal information, but he would stay civil.

„How rude of me!“ she gasped. „I am called Leonie.“

„Nice to meet you, Leonie. Perhaps not under the circumstances, but it is very nice to have another friendly person to talk to.“

„Likewise.“ She snuggled deeper into the hoodie, pushing her chin into the hood’s wrinkles to better keep warm. Kurt wished he had something else to offer to her, but all that was left to him were the clothes on his back and the chocolate that she had given him. „It’s a little sad to realize how much of the world before was polite formalities,“ she commented absently. She immediately had Kurt’s undivided attention. What did she mean?

„Ja?“ he prompted.

„I mean, it was rare to find someone so openly with an aggressive attitude. Now it’s commonplace.“

„I think I’ve noticed that from when I watch over the people. It’s difficult to tell from so far away, though.“

Leonie nodded. „No one really talks to anyone anymore unless they have to. I don’t have what other people need, so I am forgotten and pushed aside. On the bright side, it’s kept the soldiers from noticing me as well.“ She leaned into him, pressing her shoulder against his. She still felt so cold to him. He was surprised she wasn’t shivering and her teeth chattering. „Thank-you for not leaving me there.“

„Honestly, there is no need to thank me. Chatting with you is thanks enough.“ It made him feel weak to admit it, but he needed a friendly conversation. He was slowly breaking down without it. Kurt was a man of interaction built on social needs.

„Does that mean you are alone?“ Leonie asked.

„I am,“ he admitted. „I have been since I came back to Germany. Since the rise of the Nation, most people regard me with fear or anger. Your friendliness is new.“

„I’m sorry,“ she sympathized. „I find that surprising.“

„Why?“

„I don’t know. I guess I always assumed that where there was one hero, there would be another. Heroes in stories aren’t alone.“

„I am not a hero,“ Kurt said firmly. She spoke like she was schooled and well-read, but she clung to the fantasy of the world being full of heroes. She was still childish after all, further causing Kurt to guess her age to be so young. He was curious, but he wouldn’t ask. He needed to get into her head that he was not some fictional character. It could put her in danger if she thought that he was all powerful and good. Kurt was still human, despite his looks. He had failures and he had his selfish moments. „I have fought for what I believe is right, and I have been a part of a couple teams of mutants, but we were not heroes.“ Technically, Kurt and his team had saved the world from certain destruction multiple times, but those efforts were generally unknown by the populace. He wouldn’t bring them up.

„You sound like a hero to me,“ she persisted.

Kurt sighed and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Her skin was beginning to shiver; the cold was finally getting to her. Kurt would do the best he could to keep her from getting too chilled, being the fuzzy blue teddy bear that he was.

While Kurt knew that it would be better if Leonie didn’t idol him at all, so long as she understood that he was not perfect, did he really have to shatter her world? Could he not let her believe that there was still good out there? She was already so beaten and downtrodden. Did she really need Kurt arguing with her?

„I do what I believe is good,“ Kurt agreed. He was careful with his words. „I do not believe that makes me a hero. I made some grave mistakes, but I will not keep that from continuing to fight injustices.“

Leonie didn’t answer verbally. Instead, she leaned in closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. Her body twisted around to further tuck in against his torso. Kurt didn’t know if she was hearing him or not, but he wasn’t sure if that was going to be a problem anyway.

„Are you okay?“ Kurt asked.

„Yeah.“ Kurt was about to ask a confirmation question before she spoke again. „Cold. Tired. Really tired, actually.“

„Let’s warm you up and then we’ll look into fixing the other problem, right?“ Kurt suggested. He held out his other arm to envelop her into a full hug, pulling her forward the few extra inches so that they could share more body heat. Kurt switched from a crouch to his knees for better balance, whereas she sat flat out on the ground. Her legs pulled up against the back of his arm, her face tucked neatly against his shoulder. Despite the intermittent shivers, he could feel her relax into the contact.

Kurt was lucky he wasn’t feeling the cold. It wasn’t winter in Germany, not yet at least, but it was getting there. The days were getting significantly shorter as autumn wore on, and with it, the temperature was steadily dropping as well. Before long, the heavy showers and storms they were experiencing would turn to heavy snow storms.

While their conversation was temporarily halted, and Kurt was using his body as a miniature space heater, he finally got a good look around the building they were in. For some reason, their surroundings weren’t as important after the initial teleport inside. Nothing got teleported inside them, so all was good.

As was typical with the times, the space was very grungy. A thick layer of dust covered the ground, making it difficult to tell exactly what kind of surface they were sitting on. The building was long and narrow with one wall separating the front half from the back half they were huddled up in. The light they were using to see was coming through the door in the wall, which had a good view of a giant store front window. The window was dirty, so Kurt wasn’t concerned that a random passer-by would spot them out of the corner of their eye. Someone would have to be looking hard to see them. As it was, Kurt couldn’t tell if it was still raining or not. The sound of the rain was instantly muted the moment they were inside the building.

The front half of the building appeared to be an old store, though what kind of store was up in the air. Empty shelves lined the walls, as well as one more spanning the length of the middle of the room. A counter reached across to stop just before the door. The area where Leonie and Kurt were sitting in looked to be more of a storage room, where the store would keep their extra merchandise. The shelves were deeper, more industrial, and taller than those in the front of the room. A couple boxes rested permanently on the shelves, but otherwise it was just as empty as up front.

None of the surfaces looked to be especially comfortable or soft. Though if Kurt wasn’t very accustomed to having a soft place to sleep anymore, Leonie probably wasn’t very far off. She was resigned to the fact that she would be sitting out the storm at the edge of the building, getting rained on nevertheless.

Leonie’s tremors slowly disappeared as she tapped into Kurt’s heat. Her contact felt less like clinging and more like cuddling. „Leonie?“

„Hmm?“ Her voice was already getting a little drowsy.

„Where have you been sleeping?“ Kurt had the rest of his stuff, which included another hoodie and a new notebook and pen, stashed at an old apartment above a Berlin outskirts store, much like the one they were in. He hadn’t actually spent the night there and he probably never would have. He liked to stay further away from the city at night, just in case.

She mumbled for a second before shifting ever so slightly so that her face wasn’t pressed against the nook of his shoulder. „In alleys, mostly.“

„This whole time?“ Kurt exclaimed. She didn’t strike him as a street urchin.

„No, no. I only recently got out.“

„Got out?“ Kurt echoed. She wasn’t being as helpful as she was just a few minutes ago. She was obviously warming up if she was comfortable enough to fall asleep.

„Yeah. The slave house.“ Kurt wasn’t sure if she sounded like she was stating the obvious because that was what she meant to get across or if she was having a hard time controlling the tone of her voice from fatigue. Whatever it was, Kurt did not know of any slave house.

„You were a slave?“ He was finding it difficult to control the tone of his own voice.

„Yeah. The Nation’s slave. No one wanted me for real work; I was too small or too meek.“

„Leonie, could you show me where this slave house is tomorrow?“

She whimpered ever so slightly, Kurt almost didn’t catch it. He did, however, feel her squirm so her legs were a little tighter against him. „I can. Are you going to save them?“

As much as Kurt insisted that he was not a hero, he couldn’t just let a bunch of people stay slaves to the Nation. While it was bound to happen, it sparked up too much fury from some unknown place within him to ignore. Of course the Nation would turn to slave labor. „I won’t make any promises,“ Kurt insisted, „but I will definitely scope it out.“ He felt her arms snake around him just enough to give him a tight squeeze, though they didn’t return to their initial position from around her own self.

„Would you mind if I fall asleep? Right here? Right now?“ she asked.

Kurt couldn’t help but smile softly. He felt his brow pull tight in a worried expression, but it wasn’t her fault. He understood her need for another human’s contact. He would be lying if he wasn’t feeling better from how close they currently were. They barely knew each other, but they also weren’t at each other’s throats. „I wouldn’t,“ he assured her.

Her head shift again so that her neck was more comfortable. It didn’t take long from then for her breathing to even out, signaling that she had temporarily left him. Her arms slackened their hold around his middle and her legs shifted limply against the floor. Kurt let his legs take most of her weight, but he kept his arms around her. He didn’t have any plans to leave her, but he also didn’t plan on sleeping either. Especially now that she was under his wing, he needed to make sure the Nation didn’t spontaneously find him. He had watched as they entered every door along a street and presumed that the search was for him. He expected this door wouldn’t be much different than any of those.

Once the ambient light from outside faded, there wasn’t much left to see by inside the building. Kurt had a feeling that it was only his superior night vision that allowed him to see anything at all.

His legs and knees began to get a little sore not long after the day retired, more from the pressure than anything, but he refused to shift. His physique allowed him to sit at a crouch and run with all four of his limbs, unlike other people, but it didn’t do much to alleviate the burden of being a human bed. Eventually, the minor annoyance reached a level where he didn’t feel anything at all.


	4. Chapter 4

When Leonie finally woke up, she was genuinely surprised that Kurt hadn’t left. „Kurt?“ she asked after having regained her bearings.

“Hmm?”

„You’re still here.“

„Natürlich,“ he replied. „Why would I not be?“

She then studied him for a long moment, the effect mildly lessened by an interrupting yawn and stretch. „Well … I don’t know. I guess I expect it from people now.“

„Yeah,“ he agreed. Kurt slowly wiggled his legs before pulling himself into a standing position. It took him a while, his muscles protesting all along. Even after he was standing to full height, his legs threatened to give way. Apparently, he was getting too old for such antics. „It’s probably not something you should get used to.“ She didn’t answer that, but he could feel her eyes on him. They almost felt accusing. Kurt swallowed the feeling and pressed on to the next issue.

If Kurt was to have anything to do with the end of the slave house that Leonie mentioned the night previously, he couldn’t do it in his incognito clothes. Unfortunately, his X-Men costume was long gone, and he had no means to get a hold of another anything like it, so he was left with something simpler. The hoodie could stay, but the cargo jeans, and his inability to use his tail, had to go.

His meager stash of belongings was in an apartment a good mile away from where they sat. He was willing to bet Leonie wasn’t eager about teleporting with him again, so they would have to move by foot.

„Are you ready to move?“ Kurt asked. Hoping her misplaced anger wouldn’t stop her from forging ahead, he held out his hand to help her to her feet. He was willing to bet that, despite her much younger age, she was feeling almost as stiff as he was. The cold didn’t help.

To his relief, she accepted his hand. The plan to take down the slave house would continue. „Anything must be better than this dusty place,“ she reasoned.

„I need to stop by a building. It’s an apartment where I left my things yesterday before I went on patrol. I’d like to grab the other pullover I found, as well as a pen and notebook.“

„A pen and notebook?“

„Infiltrating a Nation stronghold won’t be easy,“ Kurt warned her. He crept forward to the front of the building, half-heartedly wiping some of the dust and grime that accumulated to the window front to better see out. The greasy dirt was stubborn, but gave way enough that Kurt was certain Nation soldiers weren’t waiting to intercept them. „I’ll need a few days to gather information before I think of making a move. Before now, I didn’t do a lot of aggressive action, besides stopping a Nation soldier from claiming innocent lives on the streets.“ He turned to grab her eyes with his own, to better convey his seriousness. „What we’re about to do is very dangerous and could get us both killed.“

Leonie nodded gravely. „I understand.“

„Good. The streets look clear. I hate to ask you this, but with the way I look, I really need something to hide my face. The Nation soldiers know me and we won’t last the entire way to the apartment if I can’t hide. You’re bound to the streets. So may I have my pullover back for now?”

A flash of concerned crossed Leonie’s face, but she hid it well. She was dry now, after the night, but it was still cold enough outside that he could understand her displeasure in giving up the hoodie. Even so, she pulled it over her head, crossed the building, and handed it over.

„I have another in the apartment,“ he repeated. „You’re welcome to have it once we get there.“

Kurt pulled the hood over his face as he opened the door to the outdoors. It was a little warmer today than previously, after the rain, but the persistent autumn chill was still present. He stuffed his hands in the pocket and looked downwards. It felt like cowering, but it kept him and Leonie safe.

For the most part, Leonie was able to follow Kurt without issue. They stuck to lesser streets, furtively moving over bigger crossroads, but one of those bigger crossroads held an unavoidable market. These were the types of places Kurt watched from above to intercept Nation soldiers. There would be a lot of them, intermixed between all of the regular subjects looking to shop. Kurt kept his hand around Leonie’s shoulder, hiding his hand amongst her hair, to insure he wouldn’t lose her in the throng of shoppers. He noticed a solider out of the corner of his eye, but he made it through the market unspotted. From there on, the going was smooth.

The street on which the apartment stood was completely clear, part of the reason he chose it in the first place. Even so, he furtively glanced each direction before he talked to Leonie to instruct her on the next step of their journey. It wasn’t as easy as walking in through a door to a stairwell to get into the apartment.

„How do you feel about heights?“ Kurt asked her

„Um, why?“ She was confused more than anything.

Kurt gestured up to a window directly above where they stood. „Right there is the apartment.“

Leonie waited for a moment, expecting him to further explain himself. „Yes?“

Kurt couldn’t help but twitch his lip up in a half smile. „The only way in for you is to hold on tight as I scale the wall. The stairs collapsed, boarding the door shut.“

„Seriously?“ Leonie swallowed. He watched her as she trailed her eyes up the wall to the window he singled out.

„That or teleport.“

She visibly paled. „Okay. I’m not sure how I won’t choke you to death….“

Kurt crouched lower so that she could wrap her arms around him. She did so hesitantly, adjusting her arms so that they didn’t cross directly over his throat. When he stood to his full height again, she clung tighter. „I’ll make the trip quick, I promise.“ With that, using the power of his adhesive grip, he crawled up the wall as quick and smoothly as his muscles allowed. He paused briefly at the closed window pane and slipped inside with her still on his back. Crouching again, he gave her a minute to take a breath and release him, before closing the window behind him. He did another once-over of the street around him, and it looked as empty as before.

Unfortunately for Leonie, his stop at his apartment had an ulterior motive. He wasn’t taking her with him any further.

„I need you to draw a map of the building as best as you can,“ he instructed her, turning away from the street. „I need to know where people might be and the general layout. I need an entry point, which can be anywhere.“ He handed over the notebook and pen from his stash. She took it tentatively, holding the pen lightly in her hand before she took any action. She started with a general shape of the building, gradually adding in more lines within it to represent rooms. She added some labels to a couple of the rooms, which Kurt greatly appreciated. The more he knew, the better.

„Alright,“ Leonie said after a few minutes. „This is pretty much just the place where the slaves are kept until they’re bought. There aren’t a lot of men. It’s mostly just children and women.“ She pointed to a rather large room that she labeled “Food.” „This is usually empty. Slaves run the kitchen in the morning to cook all meals, and that’s it. Food is usually served cold twice a day. These peripheral rooms are almost always full. That’s where the slaves are kept up to dozens per room. These rooms up front are where the slavers live or whatever it is they do. I heard rumors, though I never experienced it myself, that this where slaves are shown off.“ She pointed to a room that she depicted as slightly larger than the average classrooms.

„Is that room normally in use?“ Kurt asked.

„I don’t know. I would assume so. I don’t really know what is completely unoccupied in this building because I wasn’t allowed to wander. For the most part, we were confined to our rooms.“

„How did you get out?“ Kurt wondered. She never made it clear.

„I was bought,“ she told him simply. „The people that bought me weren’t very bright.“ She continued with the previous topic, though Kurt wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t want to dwell or because she was hyper focused on the job. „I think your best bet is one of the bathrooms. We didn’t actually use them, but I know the guards did. There are bathrooms located here and here.“

Kurt sighed. „No windows to see by.“

„Not necessarily.“ Leonie tore her eyes away from the paper and used to her hands to illustrate. „The windows aren’t necessarily big, but they’re enough that you can see shadows. They’re tinted or glazed so that you can’t just see in, and they’re set much higher off the ground than the normal windows.“

„Even if someone is in the bathroom, I can easily dispatch,“ Kurt mused. He rubbed his chin for a second, working on a plan to get inside and infiltrate the place.

„So what do you plan on doing?“ Leonie handed the notebook and pen back over to him and then snuggled further into the dilapidated piece of furniture she had found.

She had a good question. While Kurt knew he could get inside and cause havoc, he wasn’t entirely sure what his end game was. Preferably, he would take the place down and let the people go to live normal miserable lives as opposed to miserable lives as slaves. Then again, he was but one man with very limited power. Sure, he could teleport and more or less be in two places at once, but he wasn’t entirely sure how much that would help him here. He’d have to be quiet to begin with if he wanted to get anywhere.

„As I said last night. Save them.“

„How?“

„Well, how many Nation would you say are in there?“

„A lot.“

That was just great. „Weapons?“

„As far as I know, most of them are just big guys.“

Kurt could work with big guys. The bigger they were, after all, the harder they fell. He ran into a few more problems when guns were involved. Kurt was quick, but he wasn’t bulletproof.

„We’re getting somewhere.“

Leonie let the conversation die off and stared at the floor. Her arms were wrapped around her body, cold even without the wind blowing directly on her. Kurt fished out his extra hoodie as promised, handing it over to her.

„Leonie,“ Kurt started, bracing himself for her inevitable arguments, „I’m going to need you to stay here while I stake out the slave house.“

„Please don’t leave me alone,“ Leonie begged. She turned her pleading eyes to Kurt, letting the cold temperature and her emotions well them up with tears threatening to spill across her cheeks. He expected her arguments to be words, less emotions and body language.

„It will be better for you,“ Kurt insisted. „I will come back for you. Hourly, if you wish.“ He wouldn’t miss much if he was only gone for a couple minutes. Teleporting for him was instantaneous. If he just checked in on her periodically, he could placate her and make sure his safe house was still safe. „You won’t have to be as cold. You won’t have to remember the horrors you faced in this building.“

Leonie frowned at him. „You won’t leave me?“

„No,“ Kurt said firmly.

She held his gaze for a moment. He could see the gears turning in her head. „Earlier today, you said that I shouldn’t expect you to stay. Which one is right?“

Kurt hooked his lip over one of his fangs. He didn’t mean those words in the way she interpreted them. However, he couldn’t exactly tell her that he was never leaving her. The work he did against the Nation was dangerous and could claim his life at any moment, if he wasn’t careful. He couldn’t give that up for one girl he felt sorry for just one day ago. This slave prison wasn’t going to be his last hurrah. It wasn’t feasible to take her everywhere.

„I will not just leave you without a word,“ Kurt promised. „When I say I will come back, I will come back. But the way I live my life, since the rise of the Nation, is not a life I should lead you through. For your sake, I must leave you eventually.“

Leonie sent him a low-key glare, but didn’t argue any more. It almost unnerved Kurt at how hard she was holding on to him. Yet he couldn’t be too surprised, either. He was probably the first good thing that came around in her life since the rise of the Nation.

Kurt exhaled softly, calming his nerves. He grabbed a blanket from the remainder of his stash and handed it over to Leonie. „You might need this,“ he told her. She nodded, some of her negative energy dissipating. He next grabbed his sweatpants that he had found, to better move in. He didn’t care much to hide as he changed from his cargo jeans to his sweatpants.

„Can you tell me where this slave house is?“ Kurt asked.

Tears still glittered in the corners of her eyes as she explained the location. Her voice was much weaker than it was before. She thought she was going to go on some grand adventure with Kurt and he dashed her hopes to keep her safe.

„Every hour,“ Kurt promised as he vanished in a cloud of brimstone and smoke.

It wasn’t too hard to find the slave house with Leonie’s instruction. It happened to be an old school building. All but one entrance was completely blocked off in the most permanent of ways: brick and mortar. The windows weren’t any better off, either. Most of them had a half wall of brick built up so that they couldn’t be opened or smashed to get out, but so that they would still let in a little light. That small line of daylight was very kind of the slavers.

The final, open entrance to the building was guarded by no less than two people. Kurt couldn’t see beyond them and inside to tell how many more lurked about. Luckily for Kurt, he didn’t actually need to walk in through the front doors. So long as he had Leonie’s map and instruction, he could teleport right in the thick of the building.

The soldiers at the front of the building had some fair discipline, standing still at wait without flinching. Even Kurt found himself rubbing his arms every now and again to warm back up. As for his hair, he didn’t have to worry about that getting in his way. He was so grungy from lack of proper hygiene that his long locks were more or less stuck in place against his head. He knew his hair was long, nearly approaching his shoulders, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to do anything about it. It felt like it was too small of a problem in the greater scope of things. He’d probably even pull his hair back into a pony tail if he had the proper equipment. More because it would find it funny over anything. It had been a long while since Kurt was able to genuinely laugh. Every now and again, he’d think of something he would have thought hilarious two years ago in his head, but it wasn’t the same without an audience.

Despite the few things Kurt could glean from his position outside of the building, his stakeout wasn’t getting off to a very good start simply because of the weather. While it wasn’t outright pouring rain, the sky was heavily overcast. A stark wind countered the warmer air from earlier in the morning and threw dying leaves and twigs from trees all around, adding to the messy litter already present. Every now and again the wind would pick up the extra humidity to make it feel like it was going to start raining again.

Kurt didn’t actually have a way to keep time. It was pointless to try and find a working watch to keep on his body. It was too much effort for something he would have never used. The work he was doing, watching without action, would make time feel like minutes were hours and he had to refrain from teleporting back to the apartment too quickly, lest he miss some important detail that could help him out. The soldiers and their lack of movement didn’t help, either.

Periodically, a man from the rest of the city would walk up to the school, talk briefly with the guards, sometimes bearing a piece of paper, and disappear into the building. For the moment, more men had gone in than out. Most of the people that left did so with a second person. Their new slave. Kurt resisted stalking the men down and freeing the slave every time a pair walked out. It wouldn’t help to save one man, one woman, or one child when countless waited for freedom inside the building. It was a horrible moral issue that left a bad taste in Kurt’s mouth. He wasn’t accustomed to making sacrifices such as this.

Kurt was determined to keep watch for a full day cycle for his first time out. For all he knew, if he went to sleep, he’d miss something. He’d have time to catch up on his missing sleep later in the stakeout. If there was a time of day when everything shut down, he’d adjust his sleep schedule to account for it. If not, he wouldn’t plan his break in for when he left the building unguarded.

Leonie wasn’t doing much better inside the apartment than Kurt was outside. She hadn’t much to do with Kurt gone and her access to the outside world collapsed under her feet. For the most part, she assured Kurt that she was keeping away from the windows, but that left her with little entertainment. Every time Kurt came back to check on her, she begged to go with him, but was left disappointed as he returned to his watch post. He couldn’t spend a lot of time with her. Not until the slaves were free.

By the time night fell, Leonie had resigned herself to sleep. She had the blanket pulled closely around her, her body crunched into a tight ball. One corner of the blanket rested under her head, but it appeared to be the only comfort she had found.

Kurt found a second rush of energy with the curtain of darkness. Nighttime was his domain, after all. It didn’t give him added strength, like the sun had once done for Cyclops, but it did lend a certain power to his abilities. For the typical human, he was invisible except for the shine of his eyes. He could move about with ease without fear of being spotted. He used that particular ability to his advantage, getting in close to the school. He avoided the windows for the moment, even though they were dark. Kurt wasn’t sure who was manning power stations anymore, and the Nation apparently didn’t have the resources to light up a slave house for the night.

The night was overcast and the city was mostly dark. It left little ambient light for anyone but Kurt to see by. It left him at a distinct advantage. It was his first night into the stakeout and he was already formulating a plan. The skeleton ideas shouldn’t have been much of a surprise for him, but of course that was why he pushed himself to stay awake all night in the first place.

Kurt’s excited energy faded drastically by the time the morning light graced the soldiers with sight again. He was finding it difficult to keep his eyes open, but he only had a few more hours to go until he reached a full twenty-four hour watch. Men had been stationed outside of the front doors all night, changing shifts every few hours. The Nation kept their men fresh. The better to keep watch.

Kurt waited until the first shift change occurred before he checked in on Leonie again after leaving her all night. She was beside herself with excitement to see him again, but irate when he explained that he was still on watch.

He was so tired. So hungry. He hadn’t anything to eat since he had run into Leonie. True, she gave him a chocolate bar, but he didn’t plan on using it unless absolutely necessary.

The second day continued much like the first day, and Kurt was finally satisfied enough with his scouting to return for a long rest at the apartment.

„You really stayed up that whole time?“ Leonie asked as he settled down. She hadn’t eaten, either, but she didn’t complain to him about it. She was more worried about being alone.

Kurt nodded with a large yawn. „I needed to know what happened all night. A lot of what the Nation does is right before midday, but here? I think I best stick with my strengths and move in at night.“ He settled down with the very same blanket Leonie was snuggling with all night. „If you would kindly wake me once the shadows get long,“ he requested. He didn’t remember her response, if she had one at all.

He also didn’t think she allowed him any time to sleep when she shook him awake. „Nightcrawler, you told me to wake you up!“ she insisted.

He grumbled, pulling gently away from her as the bliss of his nap slipped away. „It cannot be evening already,“ he complained. He could tell his voice was heavily slurred with sleep. He glanced toward the window but knew what he would see.

„You’re not very easy to wake,“ Leonie complained.

Kurt plastered on a sleepy smile, more for her sake than out of true amusement. „Ah, I don’t think that statement normally rings true. I’m too old for these all-nighter antics anymore.“

Leonie cast him a confused look. „Really? How old are you?“

Kurt shrugged. „Difficult to know for sure.“ He left it at that. If he had to guess for her and him, he would place himself at exactly twice her age. Even though he kept his body active and limber, he was no longer in youthful prime.

„That’s not an answer.“

„No,“ Kurt agreed. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, steeling himself for another long night. „Einen Moment, bitte,“ he told her. „I’m going to grab something for you and me to eat.“ He disappeared in an eye blink, reappearing on the outskirts of the market they passed through the day previously. He pulled the hood of his pullover over his face and tucked his tail beneath the folds of clothes before merging with the thinning crowd. Most of the vendors were beginning to pack up for the night. He caught one with food, paying them a couple chips of money.

When it came to currency, Kurt acted a bit like Robin Hood. How he loved emulating characters with as much bravado as Robin Hood. He stole directly from the Nation, giving back generously to the more peasant-like merchants in exchange for goods. He tossed the merchant a good natured wink before disappearing in another cloud of brimstone, right before his eyes.

Leonie started when Kurt reappeared in the middle of the apartment. „That was fast.“

„Why would it not have been?“ Kurt asked in response. He held out an apple and bits of stale bread to her. „I’m afraid it isn’t much, but that’s kind of the theme these days.“

Leonie took the offered food with an unexpected fervor. „Danke,“ she said. „Danke schön.“

„I apologize for forgetting about food yesterday…. It’s, uh, rather easy to forget, I guess.“ Leonie didn’t reply as she dug into her bounty. „Anyway, it’s about time I bid you adieu. Have a good night. See you in the morning.“ He lingered for a moment, watching her. He didn’t feel like he was doing good by her. Could he, by meddling in her life, be making it worse for wear? Was that what his life was reduced to? Unintentionally causing pain and misery everywhere he went?

Kurt teleported to the same place he occupied before as the evening turned to a very dim twilight. He ate slowly, savoring the bruised apple and flavorless bread. While it may not be enjoyable, it was still sustenance enough to keep him going. Plus, it helped time go by.

Nothing new occurred the second night, besides the same shift changes as before. Kurt was able to return to the apartment earlier in the morning with plans for the next night. Leonie was still asleep when he returned, and he resigned himself to sleep without the blanket. It didn’t matter. He was out just as quick as before.

This time, when Leonie shook him awake, he felt a little more rested than before. His limbs didn’t hurt and his brain wasn’t fuzzy from lack of rest. As before, he went to the market to grab food for himself and Leonie. The man that sold him the food earlier stopped him.

„Excuse me, sir,“ he rasped softly, grabbing hold of the sleeve on Kurt’s hoodie. Kurt turned to face him, knowing full well this man knew who he was. „You’re the one they’re looking for? Nightcrawler?“ Kurt nodded. Did he have to move Leonie? The man glanced furtively to a trio of soldiers a couple booths down, and then back to Kurt. „If you’re against them, you can’t be a bad man.“ He shoved a small pack of food into Kurt’s arms. „Take it. You saved my daughter a few months back. I warn you, though, you’re not safe here.“

„Nor are you,“ Kurt said. He took the bag of supplies graciously.

„I am not fool enough to bring attention to myself.“ He patted Kurt’s arm, once again glancing at the soldiers. „Now leave. They know you’re near. Good health, Herr Nightcrawler.“

„Thank-you,“ Kurt said. He slithered back through the crowd before teleporting this time, just to be safe.

Leonie’s eyes threatened to burst from her head when she noticed the pack Kurt carried. „That must have cost a fortune!“ she exclaimed as she dug through the contents. Breads, fruits, and dried meats.

Kurt eyed the food warily, sighing deeply. She didn’t seem to notice his dampened mood, instead focused on sorting through the food to divide it into piles. One for her now. One for him now. A larger pile for the both of them later. She was so thin. She required more food, but no one had enough in these days.

It didn’t immediately seem like the man expected anything of Nightcrawler, but how could he not? He wanted a protector. Something to look forward to amongst all the dismal things around them. Kurt almost wondered what setting the slaves free would do while the Nation starved and crumbled around them.

The room was getting dark, casting shadows so deep, he was beginning to blend it. Kurt bid farewell to Leonie before returning to the prison. This time, however, he was getting up close and personal.

He wasn’t going to go inside yet. That was still too dangerous. His goal for the night was to find a weak area where he could see inside to teleport where he wouldn’t be immediately spotted. He needed to know how many Nation were inside and how many lives he would be risking in trying to get everyone out.

The front doors were the least likely place, but Kurt positioned himself where he could see more clearly through the front doors. He was confident the men posted wouldn’t be able to see him, even when he moved. For as far as Kurt could see, no more guards were stationed inside the building.

Kurt moved on to the rest of the building, sticking directly to the walls. No one was posted around the perimeter. The Nation was confident no one would try what Kurt was working on and no one was fitting through the blocked off windows. He moved with a quiet ease.

Kurt had to sit on the wall for a moment to pull out the map that Leonie drew for him. The first room he was to come across was a simple holding room where they kept the slaves until they were sold. Kurt tucked the map back into his pocket and kneeled forward. His torso was perpendicular to the ground, his head nearly upside-down, but it didn’t bother him one bit. His life wasn’t restricted to an x and y plane like normal people. He had a whole different playground.

He peered into the window underneath him, squinting to strain his eyes to see something, but the inside was too dark even for him. Even if he sat there for a time to try and let them adjust, the view didn’t get any better. Kurt sighed, straightening up again. Looking into the windows wouldn’t do him any good.

„Fantastic,“ Kurt muttered sarcastically to himself. He needed to know exactly what he was up against. As soon as he learned that, he could figure out what to do with every player in the game.

Grabbing Leonie’s map again, Kurt searched for the bathrooms she suggested for an entry point. If he stole a quick glance the window as the sun started rising, he could teleport inside and get into the ceiling. It was his best chance at scoping out the place. Having found the space he needed on the map, he darted upwards to get to the roof. Even if Kurt was heavy of foot, he was certain no one would be able to hear his advancement up above. He crossed the building to the opposing wall and followed it until he found the little glazed windows Leonie had mentioned. These were the bathrooms. Now all he had to do was wait until morning. With a quick glance to the east, Kurt determined that wouldn’t be any time soon.

As awkward as Kurt knew it would be, he intently listened for noises coming from inside. He hoped to determine how well traveled the bathroom was.

Hours passed without sounds. Either the bathroom wasn’t actually used, or the walls were too thick. He waited only long enough to determine the layout of the bathroom, and then teleported away for the apartment. As before, Leonie was still asleep.

Kurt didn’t need Leonie’s help in waking up in time on the third day. He still had a couple hours of light to kill before he’d chance exposing himself around the old school. He spent the time with Leonie to ease her anxiety.

„How much longer do you think you’ll need?“ she asked him. Kurt sat on the remnants of the couch left behind, watching as she paced the small room.

„Hopefully only another day or two to get an idea of how to handle the Nation.“ He rested his elbows on his knees and cheeks in his hands. „I don’t have a chance of distracting the Nation soldiers to get everyone out. If I can’t take out all the guards, and quickly, I’m not sure of how I can handle this.“

Leonie frowned, her eyes losing focus as she paced. „I don’t remember more than a few guards. They kept the doors barred and locked from the hallway to keep everyone in.“

“Like padlocks?“

Leonie shrugged. “I really don’t remember.“

“It would certainly make my life a little too easy if it were padlocks. One little ‘port and POOF! No more padlock.“ He lifted his head off his hands. „Come to think of it, I don’t even need to fight. One little ‘port for each guard, assuming there only are a few, and I can take all my problems away. I wonder how they communicate.“ Could some of the people coming and going to the slave house be messengers? Or did the Nation have something akin to a two way radio? For what Kurt could see, the guards lived on site. If two at a time guarded the doors, worked two hours at a time, how many shifts did each man work per day? Per week? If they all slept in the same quarters, Kurt wondered if he could simply block them from the escaping prisoners. There were still so many pieces he needed to figure out before he could make his first move. He needed to learn more about the guards.

Leonie paused in her pacing. „Are you expecting answers from me?“

„No, no. Mostly thinking out loud.“ He sighed and rested his head back on his hands. „Funny thing about the X-Men,“ he started. He could tell Leonie was instantly more interested. „Funny thing about that team is despite the fact we were almost all outcasts and misfits from normal society. Despite the fact we were never really acknowledged for many of the things we did. Well, expect for the wanton destruction we left in our wake. Despite the double lives a few of them had. The X-Men weren’t at all very good at subtly. Or hiding. In all my years on the team, and therein Excalibur, I think the headstrong tactics employed by the X-Men corrupted my natural abilities to be sneaky. It also doesn’t help that my entire childhood was spent raised in a circus for all to see. Perhaps I was doomed from the beginning.“

„Don’t give up on them now,“ Leonie said. Kurt raised a brow in her direction, allowing her to catch his eye. „They don’t know it yet, but they need you.“

Kurt rose to his feet and straightened out his shoulders. Maybe having Leonie around to lift up his spirits wasn’t such a bad thing. Funny he would need someone to keep him, of all mutants, out of the depressive abyss. But Kurt had always been so confident that someone was looking out for them and that everything would turn out okay in the end. How could that be the case with the Nation enslaving half the population? How could God allow such a thing?

„I’m not giving up,“ Kurt promised her. He flashed her the most confident smile he could muster. „Another thing about the X-Men: we never gave up. Ever.“

He glanced out the window to see how much sun he had left to wait out. Not much longer. He could leave now if he wanted.

„Before I go, have you noticed the Nation soldiers around this area?“ he asked.

Leonie thought for a moment and shrugged. „No. I don’t really see anyone, actually.“

Kurt nodded. „Interesting. Just making sure you’re safe. Before, I couldn’t stay in one spot for this long. I wonder what else has happened.“

„Well, you’ve been focused on this. Could you perhaps be doing a little less trouble making in preparation of your biggest scheme yet?“

Kurt pointed at her. „Good point.“ He offered a short wave. „Und auf Wiedersehen.“ He disappeared in his customary cloud of brimstone. In the next moment, he appeared just outside of the bathroom window. It was dark inside, especially so with the sun’s final light disappearing behind the building. Kurt remembered what the bathroom looked like from the morning and teleported inside. He crouched, on full alert, listening for anyone approaching. The bathroom itself didn’t have a real door to the hallway and Kurt was willing to bet that the soldiers wore their heavy boots at all times. He waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust, and then regarded the ceiling. The ceiling he could see was false, with flimsy drop down tiles between him and the pipes, wires, and ducts that circulated the building. He was hoping he would be able to access the entire building from up there.

All Kurt had to do was simply crawl up the wall, gently push a tile to the side, and replace it once he squeezed through. It was darker up there than he was anticipating. „Ah, shit,“ he grumbled. Sure, Kurt had fantastic eyesight in the dark, but he needed a _little_ light to see by. The Germans had a word for the blackness around him: Eigengrau. It literally meant eye gray, which was the darkest color the human eye could see. Americans simply called it pitch black. No matter how long he waited, his eyes just weren’t going to adjust to the total lack of light.

Kurt teleported again, directly back to the middle of the bathroom. Turns out, Kurt was working on stealth for the night. Creeping forward slowly, as quietly as he could muster, he exited the bathroom into the hallway. He didn’t know what he expected to find. The hall was empty, lacking even in a single guard. The doors, which opened outward, were all barred with a stiff two-by-four, as Leonie had mentioned. The bars were not, however, locked into place. All Kurt had to do was pick out the piece of wood obstructing the door, open it for the slaves to see, and go on his merry way. Check one.

He continued walking down the hall, making a stop at every door that didn’t have a big bar across it. Most of the rooms were empty. A couple of them were probably labeled on the map that Leonie wrote out for him, but he didn’t much care to figure out their functions. What Kurt really needed to know involved the guards. The more he learned about them, the smoother he could pull this whole thing off. Kurt walked the entire hall to the front doors without encountering a single one. He peered through the glass at the two holding fort outside, snickering to himself. How could they know that their purpose was moot with Kurt able to go through walls?

Kurt turned back around, using all four limbs to cover the distance from door to bathroom. He returned to two feet when he reached new territory. The guards, as it turned out, made camp at a sealed off entrance to the building, completely on the opposite side of the current exit. Kurt had to carefully open an unbarred door, which led to a smaller hallway. This hallway branched off to former executive offices, current dormitories. Kurt didn’t count the men, but he would guess there were a couple dozen keeping watch of the prison. Check two.

Kurt figured the only thing left to figure out was how to keep the prison guards from contacting the bigger policing body of the Nation. Judging by the lack of lights, Kurt would guess that the school didn’t have power, so a two-way radio was out. Walkie talkies, however, were completely feasible. If the Nation had a stockpile of batteries, the little hand-held radios would be perfect. That was assuming, of course, that a separate Nation stronghold was near.

The rooms and halls in the administrative center of the school were carpeted, unlike the rest of the building. It made his progress a lot more silent than he could have hoped for. He spent a good portion of the night, searching empty rooms and even occupied rooms of slumbering Nation, for ways of communication, but found nothing. Could the Nation really have gone back to pen, paper, and courier? How convenient. Check three.

Kurt made his way to a room on the east side, glancing out a window to gauge how much time he had until sun up. Perhaps he could do the breakout with only three days planning. Movement around the slave house was certainly at a minimum in the middle of the night.

First thing first. He needed to keep the soldiers trapped in their rooms. Or teleport them all out. Kurt grinned wider than he had in months. Their panic would be worth it. One of the greatest parts of the prison’s location was that a small body of water was well within Kurt’s teleport radius. He’d give each of the soldiers a little wake-up dip in a small lake. Of course, someone would eventually take notice with twenty men sputtering in the middle of a freezing lake dead in the night, but Kurt was certain he’d be able to get the prisoners freed by the time anyone could do anything about it. Check four. Final check.

„It happens tonight,“ Kurt sniggered.

He retreated back to the rooms where the soldiers slept, quietly opening the first door. Each room held four men. Kurt’s ‘ports were a little noisy and very smelly, but he could be fast….

Grabbing on to the nearest man, Kurt moved him from his bed to several dozen feet above the surface of a lake of his choice. He didn’t give himself time to hear the man’s startled screams as he plummeted. Kurt returned to the room. So far, no ruckus. Kurt grabbed the next man, teleporting him to the same lake. Back to the room. Kurt repeated until the room was clear. „This is fantastic,“ Kurt laughed.

He cleared out eight more rooms in the same fashion, and then the building was clear. All he had left was the two guards outside. Feeling only slightly winded, Kurt took his time in walking down the hallway. The guards turned at the sound of the door opening behind them.

„Hey, who are you?“ the nearest one shouted. Kurt smacked him and held on to his arm. Reaching out with his tail, he wrapped it around the second man and teleported them both at the same time. They reappeared briefly above the lake, and Kurt returned to the middle of the hallway. He slumped to the ground in the school, barely propping himself up.

„That was a little more difficult than I expected,“ he grumbled. No time to waste. He clambered to his feet, swaying a little at his full height.

The next step was to remove the slaves from their rooms. Kurt started in the back, pulling up the bar from its nestled position. Slowly opening the door, Kurt peered inside. „Hallo? My name is Kurt … Nightcrawler.“

One sleepy woman regarded him suspiciously. „What do you want?“

„Only to let you free,“ he answered. „The guards are gone, in the middle of a lake if you must know. No one will be looking for you until daybreak. Please, leave before you’re caught again. Leave Berlin!“

More people stirred at the sound of his voice. „What’s going on?“

„If I could have more people help me free the rest of the rooms, I would appreciate it.“ Kurt turned to leave, repeating the process at the next room. Before long, slaves were freeing slaves. Women and men had children scooped up in their arms and everyone took to the streets. Kurt didn’t think anyone had been left behind. He waited until the building was clear. After the few days of planning, he expected the whole process to be a little more exciting. The outcome was almost anticlimactic.

He stepped outside after the slaves, turning to where the sun would rise into the sky. It was still a deep, dark black. If things went well, the slaves would have a few hours to escape the city and find refuge elsewhere.


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt took to the rooftops as the sun started rising. His focus wasn’t so much on the old, appropriated school building any longer, for everyone had fled. Instead, he wandered nearer the center of attention in the age of the Nation: the marketplace. If the slaves had listened to him, they would be focused on removing themselves from the city, but Kurt wasn’t encompassing an entire city or beyond.

Exhaustion was beginning to nip at his heels, but Kurt ignored it. Now that the slaves were free, it was time to return to his old schedule. He watched patiently as people began pouring from the unknown cracks of the city to the biggest marketplace in Berlin. Before long, Kurt’s eyes caught on the man that had given him food. Kurt scaled the wall to get near.

„Hallo, mein Herr,“ Kurt greeted quietly.

The man turned a quick eye to Nightcrawler. „Someone is looking for you.“ Of all the merchants Kurt could have run into, he certainly picked a good one. No one cared to be knowledgeable in case they knew too much or got pulled into something that was bigger than themselves. This man did.

„I suspect many people are looking for me,“ Kurt replied.

The man raised a brow. „I haven’t heard anything of you from the soldiers in a couple days, since I gave you that food.“

Kurt couldn’t help the grin that graced his lips. „Yet.“ He paused for a second. „So who else is looking for me, if not Nation?“

„Young woman. Brown hair, small stature. She said she followed rumors to find you. Speaks English.“

„Interesting,“ Kurt commented. „Where did you last see her?“

The man’s eyes narrowed as Nation soldiers rounded the street. There weren’t a few of them, but an entire squad. „Your doing?“

Kurt nodded. „I’ll be around. Keep your head low.“ Kurt ducked and teleported to the rooftops, almost directly above where he was previously standing. He tucked the information the merchant gave him to the back burner. Crouching low so no one would see him at a glance, he watched the soldiers’ progress. Kurt wasn’t sure what they expected to find here.

The soldiers didn’t so much march as ambled forward. They didn’t have the training normal troops before the rise of the Nation would have. They were probably mean thugs they found off the street, offered a little bit of power, so long as they enforced the super powered villains’ agenda. Kurt watched with distaste as they filled the center of the market. Until he knew what they were doing, he didn’t dare move.

One man stood center among the rest of his troop. Kurt’s eyes focused on him. He extended his gaze from the very end of his men to the very front. With one hand motion, he commanded pure chaos. The soldiers moved faster than Kurt could react. They seized the nearest people to them, holding them close with guns in their faces. Kurt found himself at the very edge of the building, waiting to pounce and spring into action. Unfortunately, his maturity got the better of him. He knew there was nothing he could do without lives lost. The Nation was trying to draw him out, he was certain.

„We suggest you don’t struggle,“ the center man’s voice rang out. Kurt had to strain to hear him. „Accept this seizure without a fight, and you will have your life.“ His eyes scanned the crowd, disapproving. „Your devil of blue crossed the line last night and you will suffer his consequences.“

Kurt bared his teeth, a low growl forming in his throat. He should have known that the Nation would pull off a stunt such as this. He should have thought ahead and realized the consequences. No matter what Kurt did, he would always upset the balance of things. He should teleport down into the center of the marketplace and give himself up, but he didn’t think it would help at this point. If he surrendered, it wouldn’t become a blood bath, but he didn’t foresee the man letting go of the innocents, either.

Kurt’s eyes sought out the merchant that had helped him over the past few days and was disappointed to find that even he was held by a Nation soldier. He was looking down, his back to Kurt’s position. Kurt had failed him, too.

„What do I do?“ Kurt hissed at no one in particular. Could God hear him?

As if in answer, Kurt caught sight of a very familiar blob of hair. He crouched forward, his angle more upside-down than upright. The hair was brown and wavy, coming down to the woman’s middle back. Kurt’s eyes flew open in alarm. This must be the woman the merchant had warned him about. A soldier moved to grab her, but she seemed to supernaturally evade him. The man glanced at his hands, confused.

„This is my answer?“ Kurt asked quietly, almost pained. What did she think she was doing?

Frustrated, whether or not it was at himself or this new player, Kurt forgot his hesitance and jumped down to the ground. It was a three story drop, but with Kurt’s athleticism and modified body, he took the shock in a calculated roll before bouncing back to his feet.

„What are you doing?“ the merchant cried out. Kurt took out the soldier holding him with one swift punch to the jaw. He had been working on tying up the merchant’s hands with rope, but Kurt was able to pull these off with ease.

„My friend showed up,“ Kurt explained lowly. „It is time for me to stop cowering.“

„Cowering is not the word I would use, my friend,“ the merchant said softly. Two more nearby soldiers locked their eyes on Kurt, but the merchant held his ground.

Kurt set his jaw and did not argue with him. „Please, run. Save yourself and hide.“ With that, he rushed forward and engaged the two soldiers before him. His lack of sleep and nutrition was shoved aside in his need to protect the people. This was his mess to clean up and he was simply going to watch everything fall to ruin. Kurt was not a warrior, but nor could he stand by idly with evil all around him.

Right before Kurt reached the soldiers, he dropped to all fours and launched himself with all his power at the nearest man. He fell back with a cry, silenced as his body hit the ground, Kurt’s weight pushing out the rest of his air. Spinning, Kurt struck out with his tail to trip the second soldier. He fell awkwardly, but reached for his gun anyway. Kurt knocked it out of his hand and sent a well-aimed kick to incapacitate him. It wasn’t the cleanest fighting, but Kurt needed every advantage he could get. That was three men down of fifty.

The sounds of Kurt’s fighting, amongst the relatively quiet merchant square, drew the attention of the rest of the squad. Kurt turned to see their leader grinning in his direction. He thought he had the upper hand. Kurt wasn’t sure he was wrong.

Another person, however, caught sight of him. She dashed forward, ignoring the Nation’s attempts to snatch her. “Kurt!” she shouted. Her voice sounded relieved.

“Kitty!” he called back. His attention wavered as another couple men left their captives to attack him. So far no one had managed to pull out a gun, but Kurt was sure it wouldn’t take them long. Kitty could render herself intangible and wouldn’t let a hit strike her. Kurt had the uncanny ability to make people right angry at him and never sat still for long.

He pounced into action, bringing the fight in close to the soldiers before they had a chance to pull their guns on him. He sent an elbow flying into the nearest soldier’s face, moving from a crouched position to full standing height for momentum. As he fell, Kurt spun and kick into the midsection of the second’s. At the very least, since the soldiers lacked actual military experience, they were fairly easy to fell in hand-to-hand combat. And, as it turned out, hand-to-hand was Kurt’s specialty. For good measure, Kurt used the second man’s body as a springboard to launch himself at a third soldier. He landed with his feet on the man’s shoulders. He crumpled under the sudden weight and strain. Kurt used his forward jump to push him forward, flat on his face. For the moment, his area was clear. He used it to turn back to Kitty.

“What are you doing here?” he cried. The English felt funny after speaking German again for so long. “How did you get to Germany?”

“Not the time, Kurt!” she shouted back at him. She was busy with her own swarm of soldiers. Apparently, now that she had found her target, she was willing to fight.

She looked fantastic, given the circumstances. Her body was still lean with muscle, capable of an extended fight. Her face was harder than when he had left, but he wasn’t surprised. The Nation wasn’t an easy place to live. She moved with practiced ease, turning her phasing on and off so quickly, the soldiers couldn’t predict when her body would hit and when it would pass right through. She probably had as many soldiers down as Kurt did, but that still left over thirty to deal with.

Kurt vaguely heard the squad leader shouting to his men. Kurt couldn’t be bothered to hear what he was saying. He moved further away from the center man, attacking the squad from behind. In one little teleport, Kurt went from one end of the market place to the other end. The soldiers started, surprised.

„Excuse me, but I have some catching up to do,“ Kurt told them, adding a hint of impatience to his voice for good measure. He attacked. While he was a good distance away from the first soldier, having had to teleport to an obviously clear spot to begin with, with the ease of Kurt’s mutant power, he went from leaping into nothing to leaping straight over the first man. He cried out in surprise as Kurt grabbed his shoulders and threw him to the ground. Turning, Kurt teleported again to use his favorite teleport-punch tactic from the days of old on the second, third, and fourth man in the vicinity. They dropped like proverbial flies. Kurt rubbed his knuckles with a grimace. „I keep forgetting about that,“ he muttered. Punching so many faces so fast really did their number on his tender bones.

Hoping the citizens had the sense to run without him telling them to, Kurt moved on to the next few soldiers, working his way back to the center of the squad.

Kurt and Kitty only had a few more Nation men left when the first gunshot sounded. Kurt spun to view its source, cursing. The squad leader still stood, a pistol in hand. Kurt couldn’t tell if he had actively shot at someone, or if the shot was a show meant to grab his attention. Kitty was wrapping up her section with a practiced ease. Kurt, grabbing on to his last man, offered him a multiple point teleportation ride until he was face-to-face with the main man. By the last ‘port, the man was unconscious.

„You’re too late, Nightcrawler,“ the man said with a grin. Kurt sent a well-aimed punch to his nose, and then temple with his other hand. He went out with that very same smile.

Turning, Kurt surveyed the market place. „Run!“ he shouted to the remaining people. „Find somewhere to hide!“ He frowned at the scrabbling, panicked people, and then sought out Kitty.

“You really do know how to find trouble, don’t you?” Kitty asked. She brushed off her shoulder, as if it would help keep the fabric clean. She didn’t bother to dodge people, but phased right through them when they didn’t manage to clear her. Before long, the two of them were alone in a once busy street.

“I don’t think your accusation is fair! Since when have I caused trouble?” Kurt scrunched his brow, going over his words to make sure the English made as much sense as the German. He was really out of practice.

Kitty waved his question off. “You’re one hard man to find, you know.”

“That’s kind of the point of hiding,” Kurt quipped with a smirk. “I’ve been in or around Berlin for the better part of a year, but never the same place twice.” Except for when he stashed Leonie in the apartment. It was a good hiding place. He let the smile drop. “So why are you looking for me?” he asked seriously.

“Things … happened in the U.S. The Nation is getting stronger, the villains in charge of the land there are starting to work together instead of against each other. I think they’ve weeded out the weak links. This” – she gestured widely – “is actually way better off than where I’ve come from. Anyway, some of the old Avengers and X-Men, among others, have started to go underground, gathering a force to try and bring the Nation down. We need something _big_ to stop them. Our little, uncoordinated attacks aren’t doing anything. I came to find you. If we can just get one country back, we can start working on everywhere else.”

“Why go through all the trouble for just me?” Kurt asked.

“Because I already had an idea on where you went. You know Scott hasn’t been seen since the rise of the Nation? No one knows where he went. And he’s not the only one.”

Kurt frowned. “That’s unlike him.”

Kitty shrugged. “Well, what can we do now? What do you say, Kurt? I know you think you’re doing good here – and I believe you’re right. But what about getting ahead of this thing?”

She was so serious. It was a little unnerving for Kurt. When Kitty first joined the team, she was more concerned about the fashion of her X-Men suit than actually fighting. She tried, sometimes a little too hard, but she was so innocent. This was not the same Kitty from those years.

He sighed. “You really think it’ll be better this way?” he asked. “I don’t think these people will have anyone to watch over them when I leave.”

Kitty’s brows knitted together in concern. “I know,” she said softly. “But I really do think we need everyone working together.”

Kurt let the words hang for a moment. He knew what needed to be done. He was naïve to think that he could leave his team behind and make his homeland better. Somehow, he thought the X-Men would pull through and do what they always did: save the world. He didn’t think they would need him to do it. “Alright,” he said. “I have one stop I need to make. This young girl, Leonie, has –” Kurt’s words were cut off short with the reverberating sound of a high powered gunshot. A sharp pain cut through his shoulder and he howled without realizing he was making the noise. Whirling around, Kurt sought to see the cause. Sniper on a rooftop. The Nation was taking a leaf from his book.

Without giving Kitty a second thought, Kurt teleported up to the man. Grabbing him with the crook of his elbow, Kurt pulled the man into a kneeling position, slowly choking him out. Pain shot through Kurt’s shoulder at the man’s struggles, but the bullet didn’t hit anything important. It was clean, through the meaty part above the bone. Kurt waited until the struggles ceased before letting him go. He wouldn’t kill him. Kurt searched the rooftop for another soldier, but the rest were on the ground, marching toward their fallen comrades. And there, in the middle of them all, was Kitty. She wasn’t standing any longer, but was surrounded by a growing puddle of her own blood.

“Kitty!” Kurt shouted. The inhuman quality to his voice lent the sudden stab of pain. Emotional pain. Kurt teleported again to Kitty’s side. He was so used to working alone, he forgot to check in with Kitty before acting. “Kitty,” Kurt cried again, this time by her side. The sniper managed to hit Kurt and Kitty with the same shot. Her wound, however, wasn’t clean, nor was it easily written off. The sniper had found Kitty’s heart.

The soldiers didn’t give Kurt time to mourn. They leveled their weapons on his form and would have shot him if he didn’t flee.

Kurt was a coward.

„Kurt?“ Another familiar female voice. Leonie. Kurt retreated back to the apartment. It was the only place he could think. He couldn’t even bring Kitty’s body.

He couldn’t break down in front of Leonie. He needed to swallow the pain he felt, for the time being. He clenched his jaw and met her eyes.

„Kurt, what happened?“

„The slaves are free, for now,“ he told her. His voice sounded hollow even to his ears.

„You did it already?“ Leonie exclaimed. She hesitated, however. „That’s not it, is it?“

Kurt shook his head. „I lost a very good friend today.“ Leonie remained silent, waiting for him to continue. „I let down my guard.“ Kurt failed her, just as he had failed everyone else. What he took as a sign from God caused him to lose one of his best friends he’d ever had. He dropped his eyes.

„Who was it?“ Leonie asked.

„Kitty. My kitten.“ He didn’t realize he had slumped to his knees. Was it out of habit? Or pure grief? He couldn’t remember.

He didn’t look at Leonie, but her silence weighed heavily. He wondered how she could still think he was a force of good when everything seemed to be made worse for his trying. Even Leonie could probably eat better when begging on a street. He bowed his head, losing his consciousness to his own world. He forgot about Leonie until she laid a hand around his shoulders.

„I’m sorry,“ she whispered.

Kurt ground his teeth hard against the grief, fighting it with everything he had. The Nation was not a place to mourn. Especially in the face of a young, impressionable woman such as Leonie. He took in a deep breath and forced himself to his feet. He vaguely registered Leonie’s surprised and confused expression. „She asked me to go back to America,“ he told Leonie. Was it just him, or did his voice sound like it was underwater?

„Amerika? Warum?“ Leonie asked.

Kurt leveled a look at her. She knew enough about him to piece together why he would be asked to return to the United States. „I think I need to go,“ he said.

„What about Berlin?“ she asked. More quietly, she added, „What of me?“

„I know,“ Kurt said, as if that was the answer she needed. „But what good am I really doing here?“ He couldn’t help but let his insecurities loose. She was the first person that had actually talked to him in months. Kurt had Logan to drink with or Ororo to speak with when he really needed another person before. Since he had left, he didn’t have anyone but God. Lately, God hadn’t been very friendly.

„You freed those slaves,“ Leonie offered. She seemed to be keeping up with Kurt’s scattered thoughts.

„For how long?“ Kurt asked bitterly. He turned away from her and brought his hand up to his forehead. He knew he was treating her unfairly.

„You gave them a better chance than they had.“ Kurt scoffed, but didn’t argue further. She didn’t see the near massacre in the market that morning. Even though Kurt had given those few dozen people temporary freedom, he was the reason an entire marketplace was almost enslaved instead. The Nation would probably try and repeat the stunt after gathering their men again. „Kurt, don’t go, please.“

„I need to,“ he replied lowly. He made the wrong decision, coming to Germany. He needed to go back to where his … family was.

„What about me?“ Leonie asked again, still quiet.

„I don’t know, Leonie.“ He sighed and stepped toward the window. He still didn’t see signs of Nation. „I need to get you out of this apartment. You made it before me. You can make it again.“

He looked back quickly, only to see tears welling in her eyes. He shouldn’t have let her get so attached, but a part of him felt like it was inevitable as soon as he pulled her out of the rain. A part of him was always uncomfortable regarding her attachment.

„What if I come with you?“

„You’re not safe with me,“ Kurt said quickly. He had to hold himself back from snapping at her.

„Kurt?“

He took in a breath and turned back to face her. „What?“

„You’re bleeding.“ She pointed at his shoulder.

How could he have forgotten? It didn’t seem to hurt until she pointed it out. He studied the bloody gap in his hoodie, but the only telltale sign against the black fabric was how shiny it was. Preparing himself for the inevitable sharp pain, he pulled the hoodie and shirt in one movement over his head. He heard himself hiss, but didn’t remember doing so.

„My God!“ Leonie exclaimed. „You’ve been shot?!“

„Yeah.“ He averted his eyes. Before he knew it, she was close, tenderly touching around the wound. He flinched away without thinking.

„No no no,“ Leonie said. „You’re still bleeding. You’re not going away until you’re done bleeding.“ Something about her switched in those moments. She pushed away her insecurities to help him even when he wasn’t letting her. „And _then_ I’m coming with you.“

Kurt sat down heavily, succumbing to her fussing.

„Of course, I’ve never dealt with a bullet wound before.“ Oh, how lucky she was. „And we don’t have any disinfectant. This probably should be sewn up….“

„No.“

„You don’t even know what you’re saying right now.“ She almost sounded cross.

„You’re not stitching me up,“ Kurt said firmly. „You don’t know how and we don’t have anything to do it with. I’m not completely lost.“

He left Kitty’s body in the middle of the street. He didn’t even try to bring her home.

„Fine. This wound needs pressure.“ Before she could say anything else, Kurt fished the shirt out from the heap of hoodie and passed it to her. „What am I supposed to do with this?“

„Pressure. Tie it under my arm – both my arms if possible.“ Considering where the bullet passed through his muscle, he wasn’t even sure if that would work.

She regarded the shirt distastefully. „Is this even clean?“

„No. But I think it’s all we have.“ She still didn’t appear placated and didn’t take the shirt. Kurt sighed. „What?“

„You really shouldn’t apply a dirty _shirt_ to an open wound.“

Kurt wasn’t sure if he entirely cared, but Leonie did. He wasn’t sure why he cared that she cared. „Okay, fine,“ Kurt said. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke without another word.

Rumors of a tavern floated up to Kurt in his time in the city. Kurt made sure to give it a wide berth until today. He was certain that the Nation knew about this place, but he didn’t think they actively patrolled it. Disregarding the few stares he caught from the street, he threw open the door to the bar and stepped inside.

The bar did well in upholding stereotypes. It was dark, much darker than it needed to be. It looked as if the window glass hadn’t been clean since the start of the Nation. That, coupled with the lack of electricity and any other real means to produce light, left the building eerily shadowed. Kurt could still see, but he wasn’t sure how the men inside did. The wooden tables and bar were stained dark as well. Only a few men were inside and all of them were watching Kurt. Kurt ignored them all to walk straight up to the bar.

The bartender hesitated. He probably wasn’t very excited to see a very obvious mutant strut into his building. With Kurt’s shirt and hoodie missing, his tail free, it was hard to miss Kurt’s status even in a room as dark as this. „Sir?“

Kurt slapped the last of the money he had on the bar. „I need the highest proof this will buy,“ he said. „Whole thing.“ The bartender studied the money on the counter. Kurt could see reluctance, but with Kurt’s mutant status he wasn’t outright denying him. Mutants and other super powered beings were held in a limelight under the Nation’s rule. Kurt grumbled and pushed the money forward insistently. „Hurry, man, I don’t have all day.“

Kurt supposed that, if he spent the time searching, he could find something better than a bottle of spirits to fulfill Leonie’s request. But the stores were pillaged and a bar was the only reliable place to have alcohol. Even in a dystopian world, the people needed their alcohol.

The bartender casually slid the money from the countertop to his hand, tucking it away. Kurt could feel his gaze burning into him as he studied him, no doubt taking in the wound and obvious disregard to sense of style. Before Kurt could open his mouth to usher him further, he turned to his alcohol shelf, ducked underneath to the storage shelves, and pulled out a bottle. Vodka, of course. It would do. Kurt snatched it from his hands as he drew near, disappearing in another cloud of smoke. He wouldn’t be surprised if word of his appearance in that dingy bar quickly made it to the ears of the Nation.

„What the hell was that?“ Leonie demanded loudly upon Kurt’s return. Her eyes darted straight for the bottle in his hand. „What the hell is that?“ she amended.

He handed it over, shaking it in his insistence. „Disinfectant. Don’t use it all. It’s not exactly to my tastes, but I’m awfully thirsty.“

Leonie opened the bottle and doused a section of his shirt. „So this is how famous heroes skulk,“ she observed.

„Again, I’m not a hero,“ Kurt argued flatly. He certainly didn’t deserve that title anymore. He lowered himself to his knees so that she could reach him better.

„Yeah, I’m beginning to see why you keep saying that.“ The words stung more than the vodka on his wound. He clenched his jaw tight, hissing between his teeth. „Quit being such a baby,“ she chided. Her words were out to maim. Kurt took them as they were dealt, holding still as she dabbed around the wound and eventually tied it off around his shoulder.

„Why, Leonie?“ he asked. He didn’t bother to get up to his feet, even though she was done with him. „Why do you insist on staying with me?“

„I don’t know,“ she said rather quickly. He jumped at the pain he sensed in her words. „Maybe because I idolized you almost my entire life? Because I thought an actually good man had come to help?“ She didn’t meet his eyes. „You’re miserable, Nightcrawler.“

„ _I just lost my friend,“_ Kurt barked. „I didn’t even do anything! I just left her there and ran away! What kind of coward does that?“ He ran the palms of his hands down his face and took in a deep breath. He was giving in to her scathing words and pain. It wasn’t a good fit for him.

„I’m sorry,“ Leonie said. Her voice was sincere. Her eyes were strained. Reddened.

Kurt finally felt the tears spring to his eyes, and then fall down his cheeks. „Leonie, I –“ He was cut short as she threw her arms around him, barely avoiding the bullet hole in his shoulder. It took him a moment to realize that he was truly crying and the shaking wasn’t just from her. Not only for his grief for the loss of Kitty, but for all his recent failures. He was cursed to choose between the lesser of two evils. He needed to stop blaming the circumstances and take ownership for everything he did. He needed to step up to the pedestal Leonie had built for him.

After a long moment, Leonie pulled away from her. She used the back of her hand to wipe the tears off her cheeks. „I feel safer around you. I don’t mean to be so mean.“

Kurt couldn’t reply for a while. His voice didn’t seem to want to work. „I should thank you. You’re holding me accountable, which is something I apparently needed.“ He took the bottle from where Leonie had sat it and held it up between them. „Tomorrow, we start the search for a way to go back to America. Kitty didn’t teleport here. She had to have gotten here somehow.“ He almost choked up too much to speak again. „Today, I celebrate Kitty’s life.“ With that, he raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply.

Leonie settled on the floor beside him, crossing her legs underneath her. He offered the bottle to her and she took it, taking a swig of her own. She made a face. „I wish I had the chance to meet her, too,“ she said earnestly. She handed the bottle back over.

„You know, she was afraid of me when we first met,“ Kurt said. He took another long draught. „She’d hardly stay in the same room as me. She was thirteen when she joined the X-Men.“ He was twenty at the time. He offered the bottle back to her, but she held up her hand to refuse. Instead, he set the bottle on the ground between them until he was ready for another drink.

„Is it because of the way you looked?“

Kurt nodded. „Undoubtedly. I then got in the habit of doing little things to startle her. Partially on purpose, partially on accident.“ He snickered. „I think after I apologized for that, she started to open up to me. She’s been my kitten ever since.“

„What was she like?“ Leonie asked curiously.

„At first, Kitty just wanted to be included. She was smart. Incredibly smart. I think the Professor was harder on Kitty than the rest of us because he didn’t want to ruin her potential. She always had such a big sense of adventure, too. Oh, the things we would do. Between us, our imaginations were limitless!“ He sighed. His reminiscence was pulling him out of the downhill funk he had been feeling lately and almost put a smile on his face. „Kitty was such a caring person. I think she surpassed me in terms of helping people. She was kind and sweet. I was a little too impish in comparison.“

The vision of her body lying in the middle of the street crossed his mind again. He panicked. Fled.

Taking up the bottle of vodka again, Kurt tried to drown the mental image out with alcohol. The caring hands of booze weren’t working quickly enough for his liking. He needed a brief reprieve.


	6. Chapter 6

„You look like you’ve been hit by a bus,“ Leonie noted.

Kurt grimaced, holding his head to keep it from jostling. The alcohol was not the best plan without some water to rehydrate himself. Seemed like a good idea at the time. „Thanks,“ he grumbled.

„So what’s the plan today?“ she asked, pushing on to the next topic.

Kurt didn’t want to think about the next step in the plan yet. Thinking was a little too painful. She’d apparently let him sleep in to midday and had plenty of time to spend to herself while he was out cold. Meanwhile, Kurt had only the time to sit up. Kurt grunted at her, leaning forward to steady himself on his knees. His whole body hurt, and he didn’t think that was just because of the hangover.

„I think we can spare another day for throwing the blanket over the window and sleeping,“ Kurt said. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know she was glaring at him. She was like his own personal cheerleader. He didn’t like it. Not today. Again, seemed like a good idea to keep her around at the time.

„No,“ Leonie scoffed. „Seriously.“

Kurt grumbled incoherently in response. „Give me a moment to clear my head.“

He heard Leonie huff, and then the sound of her feet crossing the wooden floor boards of the apartment. The next sound was one of a door opening. It came from the direction of the apartment entrance. Kurt lifted up his head in time to see her disappear into the hallway.

„Do you think I can make it down this stairwell without impaling myself?“ Leonie called out. „The steps are really a big pile of ruin.“

Tightening his jaw, Kurt pushed himself to his feet. His vision wobbled for a moment, but his stance held steady. He moved as quickly as he could through the door to find Leonie crouched at the hole in the ground. „You’re a pain,“ he complained. He put a hand down on her shoulder to try and tempt her in returning to the apartment flat. „You understand returning to America won’t be easy? Kitty died before I knew how she managed to get here.“

„The only way to move forward is by, you know, moving.“ She gestured downwards. „Let’s go.“

Kurt waved both of his hands up and down his torso. „I’m not leaving looking like this,“ he argued. He hadn’t replaced his hoodie and the shirt was barely tied into place.

„Oh,“ Leonie said. Kurt offered a hand to help her to her feet, the one not attached to the shoulder with a sizable hole in it. She took it, though barely used him for leverage. „I should probably look at that again.“

„I’m not sure what good that will do,“ Kurt grimaced. He recalled finishing off the liquor last night. Holding open the door, he allowed Leonie to pass before entering the apartment himself. As he moved, he worked on removing the shirt with one hand. It wasn’t difficult to untie the knot Leonie had made. He heard a distraught noise from Leonie when the fabric pulled away from his skin. „Well, it’s stopped bleeding.“

„If you’re not going to let me do anything, you probably should have kept the shirt there.“

„I wouldn’t have been able to put on the pullover,“ Kurt reasoned. He tried his best to study the wound, but it was just outside his field of vision. „I really, _really_ need to stay inconspicuous.“

Leonie didn’t need to ask why. „You can’t fight?“

Slowly, Kurt brought his affected arm upwards until he winced against the pain. „Not well,“ he admitted. „I can go back to old tricks in a pinch, but I can’t move right.“

„Maybe you can teach me to fight,“ Leonie said, a bit too eager.

„No,“ Kurt said firmly. He ignored her fallen expression. Instead, he focused on situating his hoodie to be able to pull it over himself with one arm.

„Why not?“

„It’s not as simple as teaching you a few moves.“ Kurt flipped the fabric over his head and shimmied it down his body, poking his one arm through. The other wasn’t going to move to get it through a sleeve. The heavy fabric rested uncomfortably on his shoulder and the movements made his head swim, but he’d have to make it work. „It takes _years_ to reach a level where you can be proficient. I don’t want you thinking you can keep yourself alive. I want you close or hidden.“

„That’s hardly useful.“

Kurt grunted noncommittally. „We’ll leave our stuff here for now. I don’t know why, but this street seems to be forgotten. If and when I figure a way back to America, we’ll pick it up.“

Leonie regarded him with a displeased expression. She didn’t like being written off. Kurt would have to watch that later, in case she deliberately act against his instructions. She was too young to know to leave some battles for the bigger war. Thankfully, she didn’t argue further.

„If you want to come with me, you’re teleporting,“ Kurt told her bluntly. He moved back to the window to watch the streets below. He wasn’t in the physical condition to get her down any other way. The teleport ride was uncomfortable for his passenger, but it didn’t do any lasting harm.

Rather than reacting with contempt, she looked discomforted. She sidled up to him, holding her shoulders in a hunched position. „Okay,“ she said in a small voice. Kurt held on to her shoulder with his one free arm and moved to the street in an eye blink. She immediately pulled away from him, her face expressing her wooziness.

„Stay close to me and don’t bring attention to yourself,“ Kurt instructed. He held out his hand for her to take, simply so that he could keep better track of her once they reached the crowds. He wanted to check the place where Kitty died before he moved on.

The sunlight felt brighter than it should have. Its warmth was a stark contrast to the brisk wind from the day before. The air still held a hint of chill to it, but the cold was easy to ignore. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do once the temperature dropped below freezing. A hoodie wasn’t going to cut it.

Gently towing Leonie forward, Kurt made his way to the former marketplace. It took Leonie a moment, but she eventually realized what part of the city they were in, despite the lack of crowds. It was as deserted as the street the apartment was located on. „My God,“ she breathed. „What did you do?“

Kurt scowled. „What do you mean what did I do? Why does it have to be my fault?“ He released his grip on her, striding forward into the middle of the street. Looking up, though not so much the hood would fall off his head, Kurt scanned the rooftops for another soldier or sniper in wait. Seeing no one, Kurt scanned the ground until he found the bloodied concrete where Kitty had fallen. Her body was gone. He strode forward, kneeling before the shadow of death on the ground.

Leonie wandered over in his direction, taking her time as she studied the emptiness all around. „I don’t think I really listened to you before. I think I know why you don’t think you’re a hero.“ Kurt looked up from the street to study Leonie’s face. If this was supposed to be a pep talk, she wasn’t off to a good start. „It’s hard to see when everything in front of you looks dismal.“ She scanned the streets. „Empty. I still think you’re wrong, Kurt. The slaves are free. The people that ran this market are free. Because of you. They’re scared now, true, but they’re alive and free.“ She placed so much emphasis on the word free. It really mattered to her.

Kurt stood up, leaving the blood stain behind. He didn’t think he could do anything more about it. „It’s funny. I used to be the optimist.“ He gestured down the street, in the direction that he first saw Kitty moving from. „I’m kind of struggling with it lately.“ He fell into step behind Leonie, tracing the little path he knew Kitty followed.

„I think … there’s a certain strength to optimism,“ Leonie commented. „You’re not dumb. Quite the contrary. People – we’re not meant to be strong all the time.“

A part of Kurt wanted to write Leonie’s words off as naïve, but he would have been wrong. She spoke with profound wisdom. The kind of wisdom that was born from experience.

He didn’t have any words that matched Leonie’s sincerity, so he remained quiet until they reached a T in the road.

„Which way now?“ Leonie asked.

Kurt looked up one way down the street and then the other. „I have no clue. I figured this would be a dead end.“

„You’re trying to figure out how Kitty got here?“ Leonie asked quietly.

Kurt nodded with a sigh. „I think she came alone to search for me. Went through a lot of trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cooked up some big, crazy plan to do it.“ Kurt wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to figure out how she got there, so he’d need to come up with his own plan. He spun around, looking down the street where the market had been yesterday, his hand up to his chin in thought. „I think I might have an idea.“

„Yeah?“ Leonie prompted. She sounded excited.

„Prop yourself up over my arm, hold on tight. We’re going for a couple jumps.“

Her excitement visibly disappeared, the color draining from her face. „You’re teleporting?“

„Don’t feel bad if you lose consciousness,“ Kurt said. If he had the ability to scoop her up, he’d have done so. No doubt she’d be out by the time they made it to Kurt’s destination.

She was too daunted to be bitter, but she followed his instructions anyway. Tucking herself in, using his arm to support herself in case her legs gave out, she braced herself for the unpleasant jaunt she was about to feel. It was steadily worse for her with every ‘port he did until she felt like her body wasn’t hers anymore. She vaguely heard Kurt’s voice speaking to her, as if from very far away, as her body was gently lowered to a well-supported sitting position.

„I’ll be right back for you, before you awake,“ Kurt promised. He’d covered many miles with the stunt. He was tired, but he was prepared for it. Leonie was unpracticed.

He stood in the middle of an old airport, abandoned by the Nation. After the villains shut down air travel, no one had reason to use the equipment here. The leaders of the Nation were already settled into their new countries and didn’t need planes anymore. The airport was Kurt’s new playground. All he had to do was find something he could fly and make sure it was fueled enough to make it to the States.

Kurt was solely familiar with the X-Jet, a modified M5 aircraft. He used to help with repairs and upkeep on the plane and knew it practically inside-out. This airport wouldn’t have one of those. He also wanted something a lot smaller, to hopefully keep himself a little less conspicuous. Would it be too much to ask for a small jet?

The airport was vast, covering acres upon acres of land. It appeared that most of the aircraft were kept in hangars to better avoid the weather, but there were multiple of those as well. Giving Leonie one last glance, making sure she wouldn’t get too cold, Kurt teleported to the door of the first hangar.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that the door was locked, but it took him a moment to process it anyway. „Oh yeah,“ Kurt muttered. Kurt ran his fingers over the keyhole, wishing for a brief moment that he had Ororo’s skills at lock picking. He couldn’t see inside the hangar and wasn’t taking the chance of teleporting inside something. He briefly considered trying to kick down the door, but he was sure it was better reinforced than that. Kurt stood for a moment, staring at the handle. „What if I …?“ He grabbed onto the handle and bolt lock and then teleported. Just a foot. Bringing the locks with him. He gently dropped them to the ground, crouched down to peer into the new hole, and then pushed. The door swung inwards without pause. „Fantastisch,“ Kurt said with a big grin.

With one peak inside, Kurt could already tell that the hangar he opened only held one big commercial plane. „Oh, please don’t all be like this,“ he begged softly. He retreated and teleported to the next. Making quick work of the locks, he found the second to be just like the first. He continued down the line until he finally found one that held more than one giant plane. The hangar was separate from the rest. He should have figured.

Kurt stepped into the deep shadows without hesitation, exploring the contents of the hangar to find a viable craft for himself. As he shifted through the smaller craft, his eyes darted over many of the bodies in disappointment. These were too small now. With a sigh, he moved on. He only had two smaller hangars to explore left. The second proved to be just as disappointed. The last, however, had two sleek bodied long range jets. Kurt went up to the first one, studying it from the outside. From his working knowledge, it should do. Assuming it was fueled. He knew it wasn’t full now. That would be inconceivable.

Kurt pinched his brow, trying to remember if he remembered seeing anything around the airport that had the means to fill this one little aircraft up. Kurt returned to wandering, looking for a giant tank of fuel on wheels. They existed near the vast building where people loaded onto the planes.

Matching fuel types was an easy enough task. Jumping the truck to move the tank to the hangar was a moderate annoyance. Figuring out how to open the door for the truck was difficult. Kurt eventually decided to gently ease the truck straight on through the door. What was property damage anymore? The building didn’t have electric and Kurt wasn’t moving the door by hand. Something had to be done. The methods were a little violent, but he controlled it as best as he could. After that, filling the tank took time.

Kurt was stuffing the hose back where he found it when a shadow crossed across the opening he left in the door. He immediately dropped what he was doing, springing backwards to hide. Crouching low, he crept forward, making his way slowly to the door without sound. Whatever figure had blocked the light in the first place doubled back, and Kurt pounced to strike. Someone in the Nation must have heard him moving the truck.

It took Kurt but a moment to realize that he wasn’t actually under attack. Leonie’s exposed neck was under his free arm, her body pressed up against his. He heard her cry out in shock, but she otherwise composed herself very well. „Kurt!“ she screamed in alarm. He immediately dropped her, stepping back and away.

„You’re on your feet already?“ Kurt asked incredulously.

She spun on him. „What the hell were you thinking?“ she screeched.

Kurt cringed. „Habits, sweetheart,“ he mumbled.

„Attacking friends?“ She wasn’t defusing. Her voice level was still at a maximum.

„I haven’t exactly had anyone else to look out for in over a year,“ Kurt explained softly. He crouched, a comfortable and usual enough position for him. His hope was that Leonie wouldn’t take it as it was: an uncomfortable peace offering. He wanted her to think she was in better control than that.

She studied him with furious eyes, her arms crossed firmly over her chest. Perhaps his gesture worked.

„Did I hurt you?“ Kurt asked softly. He knew very well that the way he moved shouldn’t have and the only thing she should have been sporting was a bruised ego. However, mistakes could have been made.

Her eyes darted away at the question. „No,“ she admitted.

Kurt rose to half his height and offered his hand to her. She ignored it for a moment and then took it, allowing him to tow her deeper into the building. „What are you working on?“

„This,“ Kurt said, gesturing to the plane behind him. He wasn’t sure if she could even see clearly in the hangar yet. „This is our ticket to America.“

She squinted forward. „You can fly?“

„I’ve never been in this model, but I should know enough to get her in the air and back on the ground safely,“ Kurt said.

„That’s reassuring.“

„Believe me, this plane is nowhere near as fancy or complex as what I’m used to flying. We never much landed the X-Jet like a normal plane, but I know the procedure.“ He eyed her. „I wouldn’t suggest this if I wasn’t confident in my ability to land us safely.“

Striding forward, Kurt angled himself to see into the cockpit and teleported inside. He wasn’t quite finished with the plane before takeoff. Leonie would be fine on her own until wheels up.

While Kurt hadn’t finished putting away the hose to fuel the plane, the plane was full. The next hurdle was to start it up. Startup was supposed to be simple, but this plane was sitting in storage for a year and Kurt didn’t know the craft. He sat down in the cockpit, staring at all the switches, buttons, levers, and gauges before him. He started with noting the basics before engaging the startup sequence. To his surprise, it sputtered easily to life. He teleported back outside, letting it idle for a moment.

„Sit tight. I’ll be back in one minute to grab my things.“ Leonie didn’t argue. As before, it took him a couple jumps due to the distance, but he was in the apartment they had spent the last few days at within seconds. There wasn’t much to grab. His cargo jeans, pen and paper, and blanket. Leonie left her bag behind, so he grabbed that as well. All of the food the merchant had given him for helping his daughter was gone. Using the time away for Leonie as an opportunity, he placed the chocolate bar he had given him on the first night inside her back. She should find it later and eat it. With a sigh, he left to appear back in the hangar.

The next biggest obstacle was getting the plane through the door. It was much larger than the hole he punched into the door with the fuel truck. His options were few.

„Ready?“ Kurt asked. He turned to where Leonie was standing as she studied the plane.

„Nope,“ she said, but walked up to him anyway. She cringed when he put his arm around her shoulders to teleport her into the cockpit with him. Her knees buckled out from under her, but she was still awake and well.

„Here,“ Kurt said. He set the bag down on the ground beside her, throwing the blanket and jeans aside. „A little help please?“ He stuck out his arm, bunching the hoodie’s fabric around his hand for her to grab. She looked a little confused, but held it. It was a little cold to be bare-chested, but he would rather have both arms than be warm. He gently took the hoodie from her hand and added it to the pile of his clothes.

Kurt took a seat in the pilot’s chair. „Either buckle yourself in here or back there. Getting out of here is going to be a little rough!“ He released the break, stepping on the rudder pedals to steer the main fuselage through the hole. Leonie’s eyes bugged wide and she immediately sidled into the copilot’s seat beside him. Easing the plane through softly, Kurt couldn’t help but cringe at the sound of metal screaming against metal. The process was slow, nerve-wracking, but it worked. The plane saw daylight and Kurt teleported outside to make sure the wings were intact. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do if they weren’t. He didn’t have the ability to weld.

Back inside, satisfied, Kurt strapped himself in and worked on getting the plane ready to go airborne. He had a long journey down a paved road before he got to the runway.

„Don’t you think someone will notice there’s a plane in the air?“ Leonie asked.

„Most certain,“ Kurt said offhandedly.

„Then why are we flying?“

Kurt was lining the plane up with the runway, throwing a little more thrust into the engines. „I’m hoping they won’t care enough to follow us.“

„You’re … hoping….“

„Yeah.“

„Dear God.“ She pulled her legs up to her body as the plane surged forward. She couldn’t back out now. Not even Kurt’s teleporting could get her out of the craft anymore. He heard her gasp out loud when the wings took to the air and the wheels left the ground.

Flying wasn’t a very hard skill. Kurt put the wheels away, adjusted the wing flaps, and leveled out at cruise altitude. From there, all he had to do was avoid bad weather and fly straight to the States. Germany had a lot of low cloud cover, so Kurt was hoping that anyone that knew about him there wouldn’t expect him fleeing by skies.

„We have a long flight ahead of us,“ he told Leonie. „You’re going to want to relax.“

Her breathing was shallow, her hands white around her legs. It took her a moment to respond to his words. She straightened up in her chair, watching him with wide eyes.

„Not much of a flier?“ Kurt asked conversationally.

„It … it’s not that,“ she said. „I’ve flown before. But you’re not a certified pilot and … what if the Nation shoots us out of the sky?“

„Who in their right mind would certify a man that looks like a demon?“ Kurt asked playfully. „I’ve done my fair share of flying with the X-Men.“

„I’m still not convinced it works that way,“ Leonie said slowly. Kurt snorted. „And the Nation?“

„I’m still not convinced the people important enough will notice and anyone that notices will care,“ Kurt answered with a grin. A little more seriously, he said, „No really. Relax. Go explore the plane if you have to. We need to be ready to move once we land. I don’t want to be anywhere near this plane once it’s touched ground again. It _will_ be a beacon for the American based Nation.“

Leonie sighed and stared out the shield. The sight was spectacular. She felt like she could see forever. From this high up, she could see the curve of the earth despite the blanket of clouds underneath them. „I will eventually. I just want to sit here for now.“

Now that they were in the air, there wasn’t much for Kurt to do. He didn’t trust switching on an autopilot feature, so he stayed at the yoke and watched the gauges. The clouds didn’t give way until they reached the ocean. Where the scenery below was once bumpy gray, it turned to a brilliant, sparkling blue. Kurt wasn’t too happy about the sun’s placement in front of him, but at least he didn’t have to worry about other aircraft.

Leonie watched everything go by in silence, but never left her perch by his side. She remained buckled, though her stiff posture and white knuckling disappeared some time into their trip.

Kurt wasn’t sure what to expect once they got to the States. He was aiming for Queens. He expected to be met with resistance there, but he wanted to get to New York by the plane and Queens was the closest point to Berlin. If his goal was simply to make it to North America and stopped in Nova Scotia or mainland New Brunswick, he was certain he wouldn’t be able to find as reliable of a way to get down to New York.

If Kurt couldn’t find his former teammates in New York, he wasn’t sure what else he could do. They needed to be there.


	7. Chapter 7

Kurt had plenty of time to look over maps, determine their route and placement on the globe, and run calculations through his mind. The beginning of the trip was benign, but his tension eventually grew over the ocean. Leonie noticed it, watching him in silence and concern.

The sun set before them, and soon everything around them was black. Nothing gave away where they were except for the gauges all around them. Kurt knew how to read them. But that didn’t make him happy.

„Okay,“ Kurt eventually said. He’d already spent hours worrying. „This plane isn’t handling the turbulence and resistance from the jet stream as well as I calculated.“ He cursed lowly. „Fool. This isn’t the Blackbird.“

„So what does that mean?“ Leonie asked. Her voice was thick with grogginess, but she refused to sleep.

Kurt studied the map he had strewn out on his lap. „We’re not making it to New York.“ He cursed again. „Hopefully I can steer us to Canada. We have a long hike ahead of us.“

„How long?“ Leonie asked. She knew geography as well as the next kid, but she wasn’t well versed in North American distances. Crossing Germany was one thing. Canada was huge.

„Probably a few weeks.“ In the beginning of winter. In Canada. He’d need to find them some nice clothes. At least he’d blend in well, bundled up as tightly as everyone around him.

Leonie sat back hard into her chair at that. „Oh.“

„That’s by foot. Traveling every waking hour every day,“ Kurt continued. „There’s a possibility we’ll only have a few hours and this could take a couple months.“

Leonie tried her best to hold back an appalled expression, but she was fairly certain she ultimately failed. Kurt noticed, at least.

„How good is your English?“ he asked her.

She cringed. „Not very good.“

Kurt bit his lip. “If I spoke it to you,” he said slowly, switching over to the language, “would you understand me?”

Her face contorted into an almost pained expression. “Hi. My name is Leonie. Where is the nearest bathroom?” Her accent was thick, like she was talking through a mouthful of peanut butter.

„Mein Gott,“ Kurt breathed softly. „Although, to be fair, the only reason I speak English as well as I do is because Professor X dumped the language telepathically into my head.“

„Do I really need to know how to speak English?“ Leonie asked.

„Not necessarily,“ Kurt replied. His voice grew distant as he studied the maps again. This time, he made a slight adjustment to their flight course. „But it would still be a useful tool to have, or?“

Leonie sighed. „Okay, I should at least learn a few words. What is Nation in English?“

“Nation,“ Kurt replied. „It’s spelled exactly the same way, believe it or not. But in English, the vowels are pronounced differently and the ‘t’ is a ‘sch’ sound.“

„Aaaaaay?“ Leonie repeated back, confused. She tested the vowel on her tongue a few times.

„Less in the back of the palette and more toward the middle,“ Kurt explained. The Germans didn’t have the same noise in their alphabet.

„Naaaaaay … schon.“

“Nation.” Kurt cracked a grin. „Close enough.“

„Soldiers,“ Leonie requested.

Kurt repeated it back in English and received the same confused look. He belted out a laugh despite himself. Again, the Germans didn’t have the hard d required for this word and he was certain Leonie didn’t know where to place it in her mouth. “Nation. Soldiers,” he repeated, speaking as clearly as he could muster. His voice was already accented in German enough that he couldn’t school her perfectly in pronouncing the letters and sounds. His palette hadn’t formed to the sounds and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the sounds perfect. „Using a ‘djür’ is close enough to ‘d’.“

Leonie brought her legs up to her chest in the copilot’s seat and turned to staring out the vast blackness in front of them. “Nation. Soldiers.” Kurt thought his accent was bad. He’d be surprised if a native English speaker would understand those syllables. She continued repeating the words, testing them on her tongue. Eventually, she turned back to Kurt. „Help me.“

Kurt translated again. Her face practically lit up at the new words. These ones were easy.

„Help my friend?“

Kurt took his eyes away from the map and squinted at her. „Do you really think that will be necessary?“

„Doesn’t matter. Help my friend.“ She paused. „Please.“

Kurt sighed. “Help my friend, please. Or please help my friend.” He swallowed. „You shouldn’t ever need that one. Besides, the kind of trouble I get into isn’t the kind I get helped out of.“

„Isn’t that why we’re going to New York?“

Kurt cocked an eyebrow in her direction. „Yes.“

She nodded firmly. “Please help my friend. Help me. Nation. Soldiers.” She blinked, as if suddenly thinking something new. „Are they still called Nation in America?“

Kurt didn’t look her in the eyes. „Yes. We beg the world for a unified peace and it’s the villains that stand united. Against us all. Ironic,“ he said bitterly.

Leonie let him simmer for a moment and then changed the direction of the conversation to pull his attention away from the anger. „How much farther until we reach Canada?“

Blinking, Kurt ran a calculation through his head. He muttered softly as he mathed it out. „About half an hour.“

Leonie squinted through the shield. „How will you know the difference between land and water? Everything is the same color and I’m assuming the electricity is out here, too.“

Perceptive. Kurt frowned. „Good question. I’ll swing lower in a bit and slow down my speed. Perhaps we should have waited to go wheels up at night.“ He forced a chuckle.

Without sounding alarmed, Leonie asked, „Are we going to die?“

„A crash landing?“ Kurt asked for clarification.

„Yeah.“

„No way. Well, not a bad one at least.“ He shot her a cheesy grin. The laughs and smiles that were so natural to him not so long ago felt foreign. But he realized that he needed to hold on to his jovial self before it was gone forever.

Leonie groaned.

„You know what they say,“ Kurt said. „Any landing you walk away from….“

„Please stop before you make things worse.“

„Who? Moi?“ He received a rather low-energy glare in response. „I’ll have you know the worst crashes I’ve ever been in – and there have been a _lot –_ were not caused by me. I’m safe!“ Her expression told him everything he needed to know.

As the last few minutes of the plane ride wore on, Kurt ran scenarios through his head. Leonie’s comment worried him. Even after he brought the plane dangerously low, cutting the speed to the bare minimum, he couldn’t see anything in front of him. The end of the flight came quickly. Kurt felt it before he saw it.

He immediately let go of the yoke and teleported away from the pilot’s seat. He grabbed everything they brought on the plane in two smooth movements, and then jumped to grab Leonie. She was awake, but he was moving so quickly she barely had the chance to ask what he was doing. The plane jolted beneath their feet, and Kurt nearly lost his grip on the girl. He shoved everything into her arms and she took it without hesitation. Without giving her any verbal warning, he teleported outside, sending himself in the opposite direction of the plane, using the path the plane had already crashed through to try and keep them safe. He vaguely heard Leonie screaming as he wrapped his body tightly around hers. His arms pulled tight around her chest and crossed arms. He could only hope that his larger body would keep her safe.

Within seconds, he saw the sparks and fledgling flames from the plane, now yards upon yards away from where they were. His shoulder, the bad one, hit the ground first, and they skidded across the ground. A tree provided their stop, none too nicely. Kurt lost consciousness as soon as his body hit the trunk.

He awoke to crying. And pain. A whole lot of pain. Kurt groaned as he tried to go upright, but a flashing pain on top of the other pain made him stop. When he opened his eyes, his vision swam. And the crying? Leonie was somewhere next to him, bawling into her fists to keep herself quiet.

„L-Leonie?“ Kurt rasped.

„Kurt!“ she squeaked. „You’re alive!“

Kurt closed his eyes, letting the words process. „Are you okay?“ He couldn’t remember what happened.

„Yeah. I mean – better than _you._ “

„What hurts?“

„Just some scrapes. I’m fine.“ She sounded much too worried. Her voice was quick to answer. She was lying.

„Head?“ Kurt asked. He opened his eyes again to study her, but she wasn’t clear. The sun was beginning to rise, lending some daylight, and it didn’t help the fuzziness of his vision.

„My head?“

Kurt couldn’t nod. Oh, how that hurt. „Yes.“

„Fine.“ Kurt was certain that sounded more truthful.

„I … I definitely have a concussion,“ he mused. A lot of people that received a knock over the head wouldn’t recognize their condition. Kurt, on the other hand, was having trouble sifting through all of the information thrown at him. He was completely ignoring sensory information to help the workload. „And …“ He mentally took stock of his body. „Dislocated my shoulder. Bad shoulder. If I’m lucky. Probably cracked some ribs.“ He couldn’t register the horror that crossed her face.

Kurt had to fight nausea as he spoke. The edges of his vision were black, the rest of it unclear. If he even tried moving any piece of his body, both the nausea and vision loss grew worse. „Leonie …“

„What?“

„How bad is it?“ He grimaced when he realized those words didn’t touch the question he really wanted to ask.

„You? I thought you were dying.“ Her voice hitched in another sob.

„I’m sorry,“ he said quickly. He meant it. He promised to keep her safe. For the most part, it appeared he kept her from immediate harm, but now what was she to do? „I’m not dying. Just give me a minute to get over … this.“

„A minute,“ Leonie repeated flatly.

„Yeah. But … the crash.“

„The plane is gone. There’s hardly anything left.“

Kurt was getting frustrated. What were the words he really wanted? „No. How many people? Are we safe?“

„No one is around. Just forest.“ Her eyes darted back and forth over his face. „But I don’t think we’re safe, Kurt.“

„But no Nation.“ That’s what he wanted to know. He couldn’t do anything, let alone get them away from Nation.

„Nothing.“

Kurt tried again to get up. His vision flashed completely black and his stomach threatened to turn, despite it already being empty of any contents. He refused to move the one arm, but used his better one to prop himself up. He made it up halfway and used his elbow to keep him in that position. His ribs protested every movement. It took his entire will to keep from screaming out of pain.

„You were stupid, Kurt!“ Leonie screamed. She almost startled him back to the ground. „You almost got yourself killed!“ More quietly: „You almost left me.“

„Stupidity has nothing to do with this,“ Kurt grumbled. „Poor luck. Good luck. Depends on how you look at it. My body will heal, but we need shelter.“ It took him up until then to realize Leonie had draped the blanket around him. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt. It was cold. Too cold to survive without somewhere sheltered to sleep.

„It gives nothing,“ Leonie growled.

„How far have you looked?“

„I couldn’t leave you. I was scared.“

„You should look.“ He swallowed. It wasn’t easy. Not only did it spark some more pain, but he didn’t have much saliva to swallow. He needed water, too. „I’m not sure I can.“ He couldn’t feel much below the ribs yet. He wasn’t sure what that meant. He refused to believe the worst.

Leonie shook her head fiercely. „I’m not leaving you!“

„You’ll come back.“ Kurt’s eyes followed his arm to his hand. Scrapes and invisible bruises, but intact. He couldn’t look around to the other arm. The muscles tightening to turn his neck was excruciating.

„But …“ Fresh tears again. „Kurt, I’m so scared.“

„I know,“ Kurt acknowledged, „but you’re brave, Leonie.“

She leaned forward, hanging her head on her neck. „I’m not,“ she mumbled.

„You are.“ He thought he was using a firm voice. She wasn’t responding to it. „Leonie.“ She looked at him through her hair. „Please? I can’t move. We’ll die if we’re out here for too long.“

„All this just to die.“

„No! We didn’t fly to Canada to die. We just need some shelter. Please.“ He couldn’t support his weight anymore and lowered himself to the ground. „I need you to do this.“ Every breath hurt, his head and shoulder throbbed. His vision was fading, swimming with the nausea. Thinking, while vaguely clear for a moment, was becoming difficult. He couldn’t argue anymore. She needed to make this decision herself. He wasn’t awake for her resolution.

Kurt would periodically wake up throughout the day. He was lucky; the sun, even though the canopy of the trees, was fairly warm. His vision was too fuzzy to see anything when he did wake, and he was often quickly back asleep.

At some point during the day, he woke up enough to realize he needed to try and get at least one thing done. Despite the agony streaking through his torso and down his worse arm, he pushed himself to a full sitting position. Balancing was difficult, but possible. Using his upright position to poke around, Kurt forced himself to look at his right arm. The skin was ripped to shreds on the upper half, but most everything looked superficial. Grimacing against the blinding pain it caused, Kurt poked around the shoulder to see what the damage was there. He couldn’t feel the head to his humorous; his shoulder wasn’t dislocated. The pain was coming from further down his back, along the scapula. Fracture? The strong pain near the shoulder could have been a strained muscle.

Next, Kurt surveyed his ribs, gently touching each one to figure out just how many he had broken. Three caused him acute pain, all on his right side. He couldn’t reach along his spine, so instead he skipped to the next set of bones within reach. Every finger fall on his hips and legs fell on deaf nerves. Kurt squeezed his eyes clothes in silent prayer and lowered himself back to the ground. He couldn’t deal with that problem yet.

Around nightfall, Leonie returned to him. She placed her hand gently on his better shoulder, tapping him lightly to try and gain his attention. Kurt wasn’t sure how long she had been there before he acknowledged her. „Kurt,“ she whispered urgently, upon seeing him stir. The extra stab of pain through his ribs helped his lucidity.

„Liebchen?“

„I found a little abandoned cabin, about a mile down the road.“ What road? „I, uh, I kicked open the door and brought you some more blankets. How do you feel?“

„Not … good,“ Kurt said. His voice rasped painfully in his throat.

She readjusted the blanket already draped across him, pulling it back up to his upper torso. She added a second one from the little bundle she stole from the cabin. „Can you move? Get to the cabin?“

„No.“

Leonie’s eyes swept over him in concern. „What’s wrong?“ she asked softly.

Kurt set his jaw. The words didn’t want to come. „Do you remember what happened?“ he asked instead. „During the crash?“

„Kurt?“

„Just answer me.“

Leonie looked back to where the remains of the plane lay. „You grabbed me. I didn’t know what was going on. Next I knew, we were out of the plane. You held on so tight, but I think we hit a tree.“ Her gaze then studied the tree behind him. „You let go after that. You kept me safe, though.“ She breathed in deep and then looked him straight into the eye. „What’s wrong? It’s not just the shoulder and ribs, is it?“

„No.“

„Kurt.“

If he said it, it would be true. It couldn’t be true. „I may have broken my back,“ Kurt nearly whispered. Leonie’s expression drop was a reflection of his horror.

„How are you going to get to the cabin?“ Leonie finally asked.

„I’m not.“

Leonie sat back heavily from her crouching position, letting out a little wuff of air as she hit. „You’re a liar, Kurt.“

„I don’t recall lying to you,“ Kurt said gently.

She snorted. „You said we wouldn’t crash land. Not a bad landing. You’re safe!“ She pulled her legs into herself and tucked her head away behind her knees. „You said any landing you can walk away from. Well, guess what? You’re _not_ walking away from this one, Nightcrawler.“

Her voice was so venomous, Kurt was beside himself with surprise. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry at her accusations. He wasn’t sure how he was getting out of this mess. He didn’t think he could.

„Leonie. You should go back to the cabin.“

„And do what?“ she asked, her voice still sharp. „Wait to starve and freeze to death?“

„Look for help. Find a group of people that will take you in. You’re a sweet girl, Leonie. You have a chance.“

Leonie lifted up her face. Her cheeks were stained with dirt and tears. „And leave you to die?“

Kurt swallowed, clenching his jaw against the emotion building in his chest. „Yes.“

„You don’t think that won’t shatter me inside? I’ll be literally killing my hero.“ Another sob shook her body.

„No. You’ll be saving yourself.“

„You’re a damn idiot, Kurt, but I’m not leaving you to die.“ She took a deep breath to calm herself, and then sighed. „I’ll go back to the cabin tomorrow and see what else I can find there. But if you can’t move, I’m not going to leave you.“ She let go of her legs and pulled out the other blanket she stole from the cabin, billowing it out around her. As it fluttered down, she dropped to her side and snuggled up to Kurt’s side, pushing her body gently against his. He shifted his good arm to hold her, to comfort her for perhaps the last time in her life. She turned to look at him, gently resting her head on his shoulder. „If you die, no one around here will understand me.“

“Parles-tu francais?”

„What?“

„Well, we’re in Canada. There’s a good chance someone around here speaks French as they speak English.“

„Just German.“ She forced a small smile on her lips. “Und help me. Please help my friend.”

„It gives no help for me.“ He tried to mirror her smile. „You need a new English phrase.“

„My friend is a paralyzed idiot and I need food.“

Kurt scoffed, and then adjusted his arm to pull her closer. The air really was cold with the sun gone. „We’ll work on that one.…“ She puffed out a little sound of amusement and snuggled closer to his body, simultaneously working up the blanket around her to keep her warm.

Sleep was no problem in his concussed state. When he next awoke, however, Leonie had left the nook of his arm and was nowhere to be found. The sun was up and shining through the canopy, though offered little warmth. The blanket Leonie had used over the night was draped with the other two over his body. The weight of the fabrics was a little restricting on his chest, but the warmth was necessary. He couldn’t exactly move to produce body heat, and it had been a while since he had last eaten.

All he could do was wait impatiently for Leonie to show up again.

Time passed by slowly. His body was sore from bruises, fractures, and sitting still. Yet he still couldn’t feel his lower back, legs, or tail. No doubt, he didn’t have control of himself. He was already frustrated enough with his inability to move, he didn’t need other problems stemming from it. Not that he had a choice.

After long last, Kurt finally heard noises other than the chirping of the winter birds. If it was Leonie, she had brought something bigger along with her. He tried to crane his neck to look, but the muscles pulled at his fractured scapula and proved too much for him to deal with at that moment. So he waited some more.

„Are you awake?“ German words in Leonie’s voice.

„Unfortunately, yes.“

„I brought something from the cabin’s shed. It turns out that whomever lived there was an avid gardener.“

„What does that mean?“

„A wagon.“

„My God, no.“

„Do you have a better idea?“ The wagon finally reached the edge of his vision, pulled in tow behind Leonie. It wasn’t a wagon meant for kids, but an actual work wagon with big, air-filled tires. It looked like it would easily carry his weight, assuming he could even get into it.

„Just leave me here to die. The pain won’t be worth it.“

She stopped immediately, even though she was still a few paces away. „Oh yeah. Your shoulder is dislocated.“

„No, I was wrong about that. Strained muscle but the bone is in place. The shoulder blade is definitely fractured. It’s, uh, not as solid feeling?“ He could feel the bone push against itself if he moved it just right. It was quite unpleasant.

She moved forward again. Slower than before. „And your ribs?“

„Three broken. Higher up the rib cage.“ He gestured vaguely with his good arm. „Not to mention, I still have a big hole that hasn’t healed up here.“ He tapped the top of his shoulder lightly.

She lightly dropped the handle to the wagon and sat down beside him. „Where does the feeling stop on your body?“

Kurt paused a moment. „I’m not entirely sure. I have full use of my lungs, assuming I can breathe through the broken ribs.“ He felt down his stomach, trying to determine where he stopped feeling his own touch. „I’d say one of the last few lumbar vertebrate before my tail.“ He paused and looked her straight into her eyes. „Which means I have no control over my bowels and bladder.“

„I know.“

Kurt dropped her gaze and looked away. Did he have to feel shame burning at his skin?

„The cabin doesn’t have running water, but it does have a hand pump. I can draw you a bath. We’ll get you clean clothes and … and I don’t know what else, Kurt. I don’t know what I need to do.“

„I already explained your options last night, is that not so?“

„Those were rotten options. So. We need to get you into this wagon. You weigh way more than I can lift, but I should be able to pull you.“

Kurt eyed the wagon. It was tall. He held up his better hand to her. „Help me sit up.“ She swung a leg over his lower torso and grabbed his hand, grunting as she pulled. She did most of the work and it still wrenched him hard enough he almost let out an involuntary scream. As soon as she let go of his hand, he whipped it behind himself to hold him upright. His muscles worked along his torso, but using them brought extreme nausea. Then again, maybe that was vertigo brought on by the concussion. „Blankets,“ he said. He pawed at them with his weak arm, but he didn’t want to stress his shoulder. Yet. Leonie obediently pulled them away. The cold air, now exposed to his warmed body, was a good motivator. With a sigh, he said, „Bring the wagon closer to where I can grab it. I’m going to need you to hold it _steady._ This is really, really going to hurt and I don’t want to do it more than once.“ Again, Leonie quietly did as asked, stopping the wagon once it was lightly touching his exposed back. He reached up with his weakened arm, ignoring all the hitches of his broken bones. Even the bullet wound protested at being bunched up. The plastic wasn’t as sturdy as he would have expected from a work wagon, but he hoped to dear God that it would hold his weight. He then trusted his abs to do as they were told and reached up with his good arm. Both hands were on opposite sides of the cart. He couldn’t move any further.

„Kurt?“ Leonie asked after a sizeable moment.

Kurt let silence stretch for a while. He couldn’t work up the nerve to pull himself into the cart. „Have you ever heard me scream?“ he asked.

„No….“

„I’m, uh, I guarantee I’m not going to … not….“

„What?“

Kurt breathed in deeply. As much as his ribs allowed him, at least. „I’m always conscious of my actions, but I do not have the capacity to keep my mouth shut in pain or rage. _This_ is going to push the very limit of my pain threshold.“

He heard Leonie swallow, even though she was out of his sight. „Um … why are you telling me this?“

„I’m merely preparing you. I’ve been told that my screams don’t sound … human.“ He still couldn’t work up the nerve. „Bones have nerves and feeling, which is a common misconception. Not on the inside of the bone, no, but the harder outside.“

„Why are you telling me this?“ Fear crept into her voice. It was higher pitched than before. He hated to ruin the feeling of pride she had in trying to help him.

„I’m explaining why I’m having trouble getting myself to do this. By pulling myself up, I’ll be putting incredible strain on my broken shoulder. With as much dead weight my legs and therefore torso present, I wouldn’t be surprised if I fracture it more.“

„I don’t think I need to hear this. I don’t think I can take it.“

Kurt’s expression softened even though he knew she couldn’t see. „I’m sorry. I just want you prepared. I can’t go scaring you off now.“

„So you look like a demon and sound like one, too.“

Kurt tilted his head to the side. „I guess so.“ He then straightened up, tensing his arms in preparation. Again taking as deep a breath as his ribs allowed, he pulled. The pain was immediate. He couldn’t remember the first fracture, but putting all of his weight on that broken bone made it feel as if he was splitting open at the shoulder. Even the bullet wound felt negligible in relation to the scapula. His ribs protested as well, though not as forcefully. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain and it took every ounce of concentration to pull himself over the lip of the wagon and fight his body shutting down. He could still tell he was near blacking out without his eyes being open.

He didn’t have feeling in his butt and couldn’t tell if he’d pulled himself along the wagon enough until he did open his eyes. It was unnerving to see his legs and tail being pulled along like rags. They were his, but seeing them and not feeling them was very surreal. As soon as he got the majority of his body into the cart, he dropped himself to relieve the strain on his shoulder. The bone and muscle both continued screaming at him, but it was his voice from seconds before that echoed back from the trees. He breathed heavily, his ribs protesting every rise and fall.

„Oh, God,“ Leonie eventually breathed. Kurt tried to turn to see her, but thought better of it when his body protested. „Oh, God, you weren’t joking.“

„I really need better control of myself….“ It was a lame excuse.

She didn’t say anything in response, but she did walk into his view. Her eyes were wide. Without a word, she helped his legs into the cart, and then draped his tail across his lap. He eyed it morosely. She added the blankets and other belongings he had stuffed into her arms during the crash to his lap, and then returned to the area behind him, out of sight.

„Are you ready? I doubt this is going to be a very smooth ride.“

He gripped the edge of the wagon with his good hand. It hadn’t given out from under him, and for that he was grateful. He would have crashed heavily onto his already battered body. He may have given up. „As I’ll ever be,“ he replied.

He heard her pick up the handle from the ground, and then felt the jolt of her pulling. She grunted hard against the strain. At first, Kurt wasn’t sure if she’d be able to move him. He was a smaller man. He was a little less than average for height and very lithe in build. Then again, she was a smaller woman. She probably came up to his chin when they stood side-by-side. She sported the same thin frame as he did. She had youthful vigor on her side, but she hadn’t been eating very well the past year, either. Kurt had retained some muscle definition from his heroing days. She didn’t have that same advantage.

Fortunately, once she dug her toes into the ground, she was able to get his mass moving with the aide of the wagon. Her progress wasn’t very quick, but they weren’t racing against anything. If no one had found them yet, flagged by the crashing plane, Kurt didn’t think anyone would. They had found a very remote area of Canada. So long as they found food, perhaps it was for the best.


	8. Chapter 8

The cabin Leonie had found was rather tiny. From the outside, Kurt wasn’t sure how it was able to contain anything. Fortunately, it was sturdy. Built out of stones set in mortar, it was covered so thickly in moss Kurt was surprised that Leonie had spotted it in the first place. It appeared that it only had three windows to it. One in the back. Two on the right side of the building. The door set into the stone wall was thick and didn’t latch properly. Leonie had mentioned she kicked in the door. The two of them would have to look into fixing that.

The building was situated near the bottom of a small basin, set off with several hundred feet from the road Leonie had followed to get here. The road was paved and didn’t experience enough traffic to be rough and it improved Leonie’s progress with the wagon greatly. The previous owners of the cabin really did look like they enjoyed gardening, though what they could cultivate without direct sunlight was a little baffling to Kurt. They were in the middle of a dense forest.

Leonie pulled the wagon up all the way to the front door. There was a small step from the ground to the floor inside. Kurt’s entire body throbbed from the slow, rough trip and he was grateful for it to be over. He couldn’t imagine the strain Leonie was exerting on her body, but she didn’t complain once. Kurt admired her tenacity and felt indebted to her for the work she put into saving his life. Whatever life it was that he had left to live.

„Pull me around so that I can see, please,“ Kurt instructed gently. She tugged it forward a little more, turning it so that Kurt didn’t have to turn his body to see inside. She set his bad side up to the door, but without the latch to hold the door in place, even he could push it open. It was dark inside, as was to be expected under the thick canopy with very few windows. Kurt would fit right in.

Inside the cabin, it appeared untouched by time. The front door opened up directly to the living room, which extended all the way to the back wall along the right. The furniture was a little outdated, but in complete working order. A small hearth was settled between the two windows, positioned so that it would blow warm air evenly throughout the cabin. If there was electricity. The kitchen, for what it was worth, was set up against a wall dividing the middle of the cabin to the left of the door. It consisted of a stove and oven set, small refrigerator, small double sink, and a little bit of counter space. A few cabinets squeezed in over top the utilities, and that was it. A door opened up beside the kitchen area to the bedroom, which was just large enough to contain a queen sized bed and wardrobe. Another door led to the bathroom on the opposite side of the kitchen, near the front of the cabin. The floors were tiled throughout, but the living room did have a sizable area rug in the middle.

„Cozy,“ Kurt commented. He was impressed with the find.

„Yeah,“ Leonie agreed. She sounded pleased with herself. „So now what?“

„Definitely sleep.“

She perked an eyebrow at him. „Aren’t you in the least bit hungry?“

Kurt shrugged lightly with his good shoulder. „I think I’m past that. Now, my body hurts and my head hurts even more than that. My vision is still fuzzy.“ He eyed the bed across the cabin. „Sleeping off this concussion seems like the best plan in the world.“

„There’s a little bit of non-perishables in the cupboards,“ Leonie said. He wasn’t sure if it was more for his sake or hers. What he said was true. His body wasn’t recognizing hunger as an immediate threat anymore. Thirst, on the other hand…. „I don’t know how old they are, but I think I could even eat moldy food at this point.“

„I’d advise against that,“ Kurt said. „But if it looks good, go ahead. These people won’t be back.“

Leonie looked wistfully at the cupboards, but didn’t leave him alone. Yet. „So I eat food. You sleep. But … how?“

Kurt flashed her a genuine, yet devilish smile. One thing that hadn’t crossed his mind when first presented the wagon was his mutant ability. Lifting himself up off the ground to something a mere foot and a half off the ground seemed like an easy task and teleporting never crossed his mind. Kurt hadn’t realized until halfway across the forest that he could have bypassed the pain if Leonie had let him have one good look at the inside of the wagon. The concussion wasn’t helping his ability to think. The feeling was akin to someone looking for the item they already held in their hand. Even if he didn’t have his legs, so long as he had his sight, he could somewhat get around.

In a flash of brimstone and smoke, the sound of imploding air marking his disappearance, Kurt reappeared on the bed inside the cabin. He was thankful the door was open and he could see inside. All he needed was a line of sight or intense knowledge of an area.

He heard Leonie curse from across the cabin. „Couldn’t you have just done that in the first place?“ she cried.

„No,“ he said. He wasn’t sure what the first place was. If she was referring to getting in the cart, she could have gently reminded him that he was a _teleporter._ If she was referring to moving across a mile through the forests of Canada, that was a very strict no.

She disappeared for a minute, carting the wagon away. When she returned, she pulled a footstool from the living room to prop up against the front door to keep it closed. She then checked in on Kurt. He was on the bed, but he wasn’t getting under the covers without work. It was already frustrating how he was incapable of doing such simple things.

The window to outside was already growing dark as night approached. Dark circles had formed under Leonie’s eyes, probably from lack of sleep, nutrition, and an abundance of stress. „Make sure you leave room for me. I’m not rolling you over to fight for space.“

„No problem, sweetheart.“ He smiled. „May I ask for one last, small favor?“ She grunted at him. A yes? „Could you fetch me a glass of water? I’m dying.“ It wasn’t exactly an exaggeration. It had been a few days since he’d had anything to drink and he was parched.

She didn’t say another word, but snorted and walked to the kitchen. She searched the cupboards for a container, moved the footstool from the door, and disappeared to outside for another moment. Kurt hated asking her this favor, but he knew it would be the first of many. He’d broken himself beyond repair this time and there wasn’t much of him left. When she returned, she pulled out a glass for him, poured the water in it, and handed it off. Despite its heavy metallic taste, the water was heaven on earth.

Leonie opened the doors to the wardrobe as Kurt drank. „There’s clothes here,“ she commented. She pulled out a couple flannel shirts from one, tossing them on the bed. She continued going through them. One more drawer and she made a small sound of appreciation. Kurt couldn’t crane his neck any longer to see why. He heard rustling as she gathered the shirts she threw on the bed, and she appeared beside him on the bed, where he could see.

„ _You,_ “ she said, „need to change.“

Kurt sighed deeply. „Yeah?“

„Definitely. Sit up.“ She offered her hand to his good side.

Kurt stared at it a moment and grumbled. He had a very good reason for not wearing a shirt, but it wasn’t at the forefront of his mind at the moment. The cabin wasn’t as cold as outside. A blanket would do just fine. „I don’t think that will be necessary.“

„You can’t possibly be warm.“

„I have a little more insulation than you,“ Kurt reminded her. Leonie hadn’t yet backed down. „Tell me just how bad things look, please.“ He lifted up his flayed arm, ignoring the sparks of pain along his back.

Leonie’s brow bunched up in confusion. „What do you mean?“

„How much _skin_ am I _missing?_ “ Kurt asked.

„You have scabs up and down your upper arm on the back here.“ She gingerly grabbed him at the elbow, moving his arm over his chest. „Some more on your side and I can’t see your back when you’re lying on it,“ she added flatly.

„And you think adding a heavy shirt to those scabs is going to help me any?“ Kurt asked gently. He allowed her to gently lower his arm back to the bed’s surface.

She pursed her lips and stared at him. „Fine. Whatever.“ She tossed the shirt she had in hand back onto the bed near the wardrobe. She still held fabric in her hand.

Kurt eyed it with a frown. „No.“

Leonie raised one eyebrow. „Yes.“

„I cannot be so crippled I need your help with pants.“ He already felt like a child, and his childhood hadn’t even been exactly normal. This felt like a normal childhood to him.

„Kurt, you have one working limb. Of five.“

„I can definitely still use my right arm,“ Kurt argued. He just wanted to go to sleep. He reached out with his left, motioning toward the flannel pajama pants Leonie had found. They did appear to be about his size, if a bit big.

„Okay, one and a half limbs.“ She handed over the pants. „If you want to prove that you’re a tough guy and need to do this alone, that’s fine with me. I’ll leave the room and find something to eat. Call me when you need help.“ She eyed him as a parent would her delinquent child. „And you’ve better have changed by the time I come back.“

„It has nothing to do with being a tough guy!“ Kurt cried, exasperated. He was already shouting at her back, and he couldn’t get in another word before she shut the door behind her. Asking for help made him feel guilty. He knew that he’d be using her as a big crutch for quite possibly the rest of his life. If she decided to stay that long. He could teach her English and let her be on her way to live a better life, not as a slave to the Nation … or him.

That was a part of it. Another part was decency. She had viewed him as an important hero when she first met him. Seeing him as broken as he was, having to help him do everything, felt completely wrong. Not only that, but she was so young. A little voice whispered to Kurt that her relationship with him was still founded too much on admiration from his younger years and could easily swing in a direction Kurt didn’t wish it to go. Having her help him would expose himself too much. He couldn’t do anything to foster feelings in her that would render her incapable of letting him go when the time came.

Kurt clutched the flannel in his good hand, waiting for the panicked feelings to wash away. Unfortunately, once he got to dissecting the problem of changing out of his sweatpants into the flannel pajama pants, he realized he really could have used help. He dropped the flannels to where he could find them again and worked the sweatpants from underneath his body. Sitting up was difficult and very painful, but he managed. He couldn’t bend his legs to better reach his ankles, but with flexibility on his side, he did completely work the sweatpants away one-handed. They were in tatters, dirty to the point where they were no longer black. Kurt inspected the skin, brushing his fingers over his thighs, calves, and shins. They were bruised, but not torn apart like his arm and side. The soft landing through the forest wasn’t brutal enough to tear through too many layers.

The real problem arose with getting the new pants on. Getting them on to his thighs was only as difficult as pulling off the sweatpants, but he couldn’t get the leverage to pull them over his body.

Leonie knocked on the door. „Einen Moment,“ Kurt grumbled.

He laid back down. He didn’t have the energy for this. He grabbed the hem of the pants with both hands and pulled. He had just enough strength to his spine to arch his back, but the move didn’t help much. A whimper escape his mouth. Through the pain, he had clothed himself successfully.

„Kurt?“ Leonie asked.

„Good,“ he replied. She let herself into the room. Concern shone in her eyes.

His body felt so heavy, and he was certain it wasn’t because half of it was dead weight. He tried to roll lightly over to his side to give his back a break, but it proved to be more pain and strain than it was worth. Leonie, meanwhile, had found a can of soup and ate it cold at the foot of the bed. He watched her eat for a little while, but eventually let his throbbing head have a break and drifted off to sleep.

When Kurt next woke up, he wasn’t sure if Leonie had slept at all. He pushed himself into a sitting position to take a look into the area between the kitchen and the living room, but didn’t see her. Before truly wondering where she went, he downed the last of the water. Then set to work.

One moment, he was on the bed, the next he ‘ported to the couch. This gave him view of the living room and kitchen in full, but Leonie was still missing. „Well, that’s all the trick in that bag,“ Kurt muttered to himself. „I could really use a fancy wheelchair like the Professor’s now.“ He snorted, less out of amusement.

All Kurt could do was wait, unless he wanted to drag his battered body around the cabin. His head hurt significantly less than it had the two days previously, but it was far from healed. Brain bruises were nasty critters. On the other hand, his ribs and shoulder hurt even more since the crash. He was having a difficult time breathing normally lest the pain grow too much in his side.

The fireplace was directly to Kurt’s left. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a while, but the ash build up wasn’t so bad that it needed it quite yet. Kurt found himself drawn to the mantle. A metal log holder was placed beside the stony step up to the fireplace doors, but it was empty. Heavy metal utensils built for tending the fire were directly next to the couch, within Kurt’s reach. If only he could actually start a fire. They were in a forest. How hard would it be to find wood to burn to stay warm? Another chore for Leonie.

Kurt found himself periodically craning his body around, slowly as to placate his broken bones, to try and peer out the windows to try and catch sight of his friend. He strained his ears to hear her voice or any acknowledgement that she was around. His effort was for naught. She didn’t appear to be around the cabin.

He flopped down, albeit gently, across the couch. He was aware of a slight pull on his obliques when his hips didn’t follow his torso, but didn’t bother to see how his legs had ended up. What did it matter if he couldn’t feel them anyway? Napping was becoming a little more conscious of a decision since first bumping his head, so he continued waiting in thought.

He felt like three entire days had passed. Not that it appeared any differently outside. It was difficult to tell with the forest canopy, but he was sure it was an overcast day. The cabin was fairly dark.

Kurt turned onto his right side, his cracked ribs protesting the pressure. He focused his eyes on the door, still waiting for Leonie.

What did normal people do while they waited with moving restrictions? Even when Kurt had broken his legs, many years ago, he hadn’t been stuck to one place. Everything inside of Kurt told him that he needed to move, but his entire body protested every time he so much as breathed. He was going to go mad.

How long was Leonie going to be gone? Kurt chewed on his lip, for lack of other things to do. Maybe the whole reason he hadn’t stayed in one place for longer than a couple days in Germany was to sate his need to keep moving. He had too much energy to dedicate to one little task. Without a task to dedicate his energy now, frustration became the fruit of his desires.

Kurt struggled to sit up again and found himself tossing one of his legs aside to stay upright. It was a little unnerving that they were there, he could see them, but they didn’t respond to touch or thought. Kurt wasn’t supposed to end up this way. It wasn’t the kind of person he was. He needed his legs. Not to mention his tail, which hung just as uselessly as his legs.

Where even were they? Kurt knew that they crash landed in Canada, but he didn’t know where. What providence? Would he even make it to New York anymore? What good was he to the resistance against the Nation?

He turned into a pondering, broody man when he couldn’t move.

So. Frustrating.

Kurt felt like he was going to lose control over himself and start screaming at empty air to get attention. A full year had passed before the sun even went down. That was the only explanation. He couldn’t have been _that_ impatient of a man. Fortunately, Leonie did return as the little sunlight began to dim through the windows. Kurt found himself exclaiming her name excitedly.

„How did you – ?“ Leonie began to ask. She squinted her eyes in Kurt’s direction when she entered the door, but then thought it through. „Shouldn’t you, maybe, not be doing that?“

„Doing what?“

„Teleporting.“

„Why not? How else am I supposed to move around?“

Leonie stared at him incredulously. „My friend, you just threw yourself out of a crashing plane three days ago. Maybe you shouldn’t be moving around at all.“

„I really don’t think that’s an option.“

„Yeah?“ Leonie finally thought to push the stool in front of the door to keep it in place. The cabin had chilled significantly since the sun started disappearing for the day. „Why is that?“

„Sweetheart, I thought you knew me better than that.“ He tossed her a toothy grin. „What have you been up to?“

„I’ve been scouting. I found another cabin down the road, but it wasn’t nearly as stocked as this one. We got lucky.“

He nodded his affirmation. „Any chance the previous owners already have a pile of chopped wood out there?“

„Actually, yes. Not a lot. It probably won’t last the winter, but – “

Kurt stopped her right there. „Last the winter?“ he quoted.

She paused, a little miffed that he had interrupted her. „Well, yeah. You’re not … going anywhere for a while.“ Her eyes shot to his legs before settling back on his face.

„How, exactly, are we to last a winter here?“ Kurt asked. Oh, how his sense for adventure already thirsted. He could already feel the cabin fever sneaking up behind him. He thought this one day was long. How about a Canadian winter?

Leonie crossed the room to sit down in the chair across from him. She let out a long sigh of relief. Her body must be killing her after the work she put into hauling Kurt cross country. „That’s what I’m working on,“ she explained. „We have enough food here for a couple weeks. The shed, even, is partially built underground, so we can store slightly less perishable things that we, ahm … I find. Sorry. But … I found a gun.“

Kurt was not fond of guns. „What is a gun supposed to do?“

„I’ll have to learn how to hunt, obviously.“

Kurt did not think that was obvious. „Really?“ he deadpanned.

„You don’t sound happy.“

„Can you not blame me? That aside, do you really think you could hunt for your food?“

Leonie shrugged. „You must do what you have to do, or?“

„Do you know how to hunt?“

„Of course not! I grew up in the center of Berlin! Don’t give me shit, Kurt.“ She sent a glare in his direction. „I don’t have to feed _you._ “ Idle threat. Kurt was by no means a vegetarian and would accept the food, but he was having a hard time accepting that sweet little Leonie here could kill her next meal. In the near two weeks he’d known her, she hadn’t displayed the least bit of an interest to really exact revenge on anyone, let alone a drive to kill anything.

Kurt held up his good hand in a weak defense. „Okay, okay. Whatever you think.“

She scoffed. „So assuming food and warmth are out of the way, as well as shelter, I think we have the basics covered.“

„True.“

„Next problem is, apparently, getting you to sit still.“

„No chance.“

She rolled her eyes at him, but continued speaking anyway. „And keeping you, me, and ours clean.“

Kurt averted his eyes. How long would he feel shame for his condition?

„I’ll have to learn how to do laundry by hand. It’s going to suck without soap, but I’m not seeing much of an option. At least I can drown our clothes halfway clean.“

„I can’t say I’ve really had anything clean to wear in over a year, sweetheart,“ Kurt reasoned. He pulled at the new flannels he was sporting. „Except this, that is.“

„Yeah, well, I’m tired of feeling filthy. Then there’s the problem of me bleeding….“

„Excuse me?“

„You’re serious? I’m a girl, Kurt. What do you think girls do? Periods sucked with capitalism. They were worse as a slave, but at least the soldiers were disgusted enough to do something about it. Now it’s just you and me.“

Kurt felt his face burning. This was not the kind of conversation he thought he’d ever have with anyone. Maybe a girlfriend, but not Leonie. With Kurt’s complexion, Leonie would have no idea how fiercely his face was glowing. How in the world was Leonie comfortable enough with him to say these kinds of things in front of him?

She pointed at him. It felt so accusing. „You’re going to have to get over this modesty, Kurt.“

Kurt gaped at her. „H-how can you just say that?“ he asked. His voice squeaked. Maybe that would add to the effect of his shock.

„First off, I was a slave. No privacy. Second, seriously? You’re a grown man. Get over it.“

Perhaps he had misjudged her. She was certainly becoming a little too bossy to be intimidated by his stature of an idol. He should have been happy that she was viewing him as an equal human. „That’s not something one simply overcomes, sweetheart.“

„Yeah. It is.“ Her tone made it sound like he had no choice in the matter. Kurt was not in the habit of disrobing in front of anyone but a lover. And the fact that Leonie was barely an adult made matters worse.

Kurt hesitated. He did not want to give on this particular issue. Not yet, at least. He was grateful she didn’t press the subject, but revisited a previous topic.

„On second thought, maybe _you_ should learn to do laundry by hand. Once your shoulder is healed, I think it would be something to keep you busy.“ She chuckled to herself, as if it was an amusing thought.

„That sounds fair,“ Kurt agreed.

Leonie’s laugh caught in her throat and she threw him a confused glance. She must not have thought he’d approve so readily. Gender roles had no place in the era of the Nation. „Well, that’s settled.“ She paused, looking him over. „How long do you think it’ll take for your bones to heal?“

„Usually six to eight weeks,“ Kurt replied. He then sighed. „Especially if I don’t exacerbate the breaks.“ He knew the lack of everything that would involve. Leonie had already pointed out that solution.

„Like yesterday,“ Leonie added.

„You could have reminded me I was a teleporter,“ Kurt reminded her again. Just in case she missed the point yesterday. Head wounds played havoc on memory.

„Like that was my fault.“ She popped to her feet. The conversation had met an abrupt end, her decision. „I assume you’re finally hungry?“

„Famished,“ Kurt replied eagerly. He realized belatedly that he could have teleported to the counter and riffled through the cupboards to fetch one of the canned goods to eat. It would have involved trial and error. Instead, he filed the idea away for later, watching as Leonie led him to the food stash.

She glanced at him quickly over her shoulder before she opened a specific cupboard. Bowls. She set two on the counter. „I would have been really worried if you weren’t,“ she told him. The next cupboard had the food. Yes, Kurt would be able to reach that if he sat on the counter. Cracked ribs be damned.

Leonie handled the food quickly. Without means of warming it up, all she had to do was stick a spoon in each bowl, hand one over to Kurt, and they were fed for another day. She wasn’t exaggerating when she said they’d only have a few days of this. Even if they only ate once a day, there weren’t many cans in that cupboard. Maybe he’d just wait for Leonie to come back to him and feed him. Like a sad, starving puppy.

Hunger gnawed painfully in his stomach as the food approached his perch on the couch. He took the food graciously, sent a thankful prayer to God, and dug in. Slowly. He knew better than to wolf down a meal. This way, not only could he saver the taste, but it would theoretically make him feel fuller in the long run. It was the simple things in life. Even so, eating as slowly as he did, as difficult as it was to hold himself back, the food was gone too quickly. Leonie’s expression over her empty bowl mirrored his disappointment.

„Danke,“ he said as he handed over his dirty bowl and spoon. He was again left alone in the cabin as she fetched water to wash them.

It was hard to not feel sorry for himself. He could have retreated into himself as a piteous wretch, letting the world claim him. Leonie certainly helped him from doing so. Yet with her walking around, doing all of the hard work, it was not easy to keep from pitying his situation. It took all of his positive power to look forward to a simple life and focus on only him and Leonie for the rest of his years. How plain. How normal.

How boring.

When Leonie returned with a container of water, she first grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filled it up, and handed it to Kurt. He took it without word and watched as she fetched his first one from the bedroom to add it to her list of dishes. Maybe he’d find a way to do dishes as well, so that she didn’t have to. It wasn’t mandatory one stand while doing that particular chore.

As soon as she was finished with the dishes, she rounded on the fuzzy mutant. Kurt had a little flash of fear. She was a terrifying comfortable girl. Certainly not the shy thing he thought he had stumbled upon in Berlin. „Yes?“ he asked her.

„You. Are taking. A bath.“

Kurt opened his mouth to counter her, but she was already stalking out the door. What a frustrating habit to deal with. Kurt leaned sideways on the couch, over the arm rest, to see if he could watch for her to reappear. He could run away, but what good would that do? With the apprehension he felt for the upcoming moment, her return was too soon for once. She carried a pail of water in both hands and carried them to inside the bathroom. He heard her knock them on a couple of things inside the room, the long splashes of water as she filled the tub, and then she was gone again. It had to have been pitch dark for her inside the cabin anymore, with the sun as absent as it was. That didn’t seem to stop her. With one more trip, Leonie indicated that the bath was ready for Kurt.

„I don’t think this is necessary,“ Kurt said.

„Humor me.“

Kurt tried a different tactic. He gestured toward the door. „I don’t know what it looks like inside. I can’t teleport without knowing what it looks like.“

She gave pause to that. „That _really_ didn’t stop you when you met me,“ she said.

„Ah … desperate times?“

„So sit on that stool for a second, see the toilet, teleport to the toilet and guess what! The bathtub is right next to the toilet.“

„You’re not going to let this drop,“ Kurt observed.

„Nope.“

He sighed.

„I’ll even do you a favor and hang back this time. But if I know you’re struggling with your clothes or you can’t properly clean yourself, know that I will do it for you.“

„I’m not – “

She held up a hand and cut him off with a sharp vocalization. „You’re being stupid. Just go take a bath.“

Kurt knew he was defeated. He offered her one last sigh of disdain. „You will rot in your own skin, you know,“ she added for good measure. Kurt grimaced and finally teleported around the cabin in the sequence she suggested. He felt unsteady on each new surface, but as far as he could tell, he made the journey to the bathroom safe.

„I’ll just be on this chair!“ Leonie called to him from the opposite side of the cabin.

Kurt sat precariously on the toilet seat and stared blankly at the wall before him. Already he was unsure of his next step. Changing was difficult the night before and his back had been supported. „Well, crap,“ he muttered to himself. This particular situation wouldn’t have presented itself as a problem if he had full use of both of his arms. Prop himself up on one, use the other to disrobe himself. A reflexive part of his brain moved to push the pajamas away with his tail, kick them off with his feet, but of course nothing happened. The only thing left to do was, as Leonie would probably say, tough through the pain of his broken shoulder and pulled muscle rather than face the shame of asking Leonie for help in pulling off his pants. He made sure to clench his jaw extra tight to keep from making any sound of stress. The effort was rather exhausting. As a result, the pants lay in a heap in the middle of the bathroom floor and Kurt was ready for the bath.

Kurt’s teleportation allowed him to teleport directly into water. He displaced gasses and liquids, but he’d become part of the scenery if he teleported into solids. In a split second, Kurt teleported from the toilet to the bathtub and immediately let out a loud cry of surprise. The water was so cold it may as well have been ice.

He vaguely heard Leonie shout his name in response as she scrambled across the room. She poked her head inside the bathroom before he could fully register her alarm. He cried out again when he saw her face. „It’s dark, you idiot,“ she immediately scolded. „Are you okay?“

„Fine,“ he mumbled.

Her face continued staring in his direction from the doorway. He knew his vision was enhanced at night, but he couldn’t help but feel as if she were dissecting him with that look.

„Go back to your chair,“ he suggested after a long, painful moment.

She grumbled under her breath as she retreated.

For the first time since the accident, Kurt was grateful that he couldn’t feel half his body. The cold water on his lower torso was bad enough. He couldn’t imagine the sharp pain he’d feel in his nether region at the sudden plunge into the cold water. Working quickly, knowing that he was dispelling much needed heat even in limbs that didn’t work, Kurt rubbed his body down. It took him a moment to realize Leonie had left a bar of soap at the edge of the tub. Slightly used, but anything was a commodity in the Nation. He used it without a second thought, rubbing down parts of his body he had already gotten wet. With a quick rinse, he was ready to get out.

„Uh, Leonie?“ Kurt called.

„What?“ she shouted across the cabin.

„How am I supposed to dry off?“

He received a long, silent pause. „Oops.“

„Oops!“ Kurt cried back. „You can’t just say oops! You realize that I’m covered in fur? I don’t dry off the same way you do!“

„Teleport to the stool in front of the door,“ Leonie instructed. Her voice was closer. Now what was she doing?

„I’m not – “

„Just do it,“ she nearly growled. „Get over yourself.“

Kurt pursed his lips. He could sit in the tub for the rest of his life. It was shaped to accommodate someone laying down for a relaxing bath. Ridiculous. He used his good hand to move his legs into a tighter position, took in a breath, and teleported to the stool Leonie had mentioned. He felt absolutely, completely exposed. It felt wrong. Before he had long to dwell on that, however, a heavy piece of fabric landed hard on his face. Kurt scrambled with his hand to grab it and realized Leonie had thrown him a towel. She even had the decency to keep her eyes politely averted.

„That’s it,“ she said menacingly. „Now you don’t have an excuse. I’m helping you.“ Her eyes cut across to his. „No arguments.“

Kurt frowned, but didn’t talk back. Instead, he focused his energies on drying off his fur, rubbing the towel vigorously over his body to do so. He couldn’t reach everything, of course, but it was much better than sitting in the bathtub perpetually. Leonie gave him just the amount of time he needed to dry down, and then ordered him to the bed. What choice did he have?

The best part about the bed was that he could sprawl out the limbs that still received feeling and lay back to release tension. A lot of that relaxing feeling was negated when Leonie walked into the room, and he had only his towel to cover himself. She dug through one of the drawers from the night before, pulled out another pair of pajama pants, and turned to Kurt laying supine on the bed. Kurt briefly tried to scramble away from her, realizing too late that his instincts to kick away were moot. She was brief and professional, though she did have to climb up on the bed and straddle him to properly clothe him. Without a word, she took the towel and stalked away to wherever she was keeping the laundry.

Kurt sighed, allowing his body to loosen. He had almost relaxed himself to a state where he could sleep when Leonie returned. She moved quietly, purposefully, and climbed into the bed without a word. She could manage to get under the covers without worrying about melding with them. Maybe the next night Kurt would ask if she could help him under as well.

As was becoming normal for them, Leonie snuggled right up to his side. She used his chest as a pillow and lent him her body heat. If he could accept this situation for survival, perhaps Leonie did have a point about forgoing modesty for survival as well. He needed to stop feeling guilty.


	9. Chapter 9

„Are you ever going to wear a shirt?“ Leonie asked. She stood over him as he sat on the edge of the footstool, scissors in hand. She claimed they weren’t the sharpest scissors, and the task ahead of her would be difficult, but she was willing to try.

„Is there a problem?“ Kurt asked in response.

It had been just under two weeks since they crash landed in Canada. The skin on his arms, back, and sides was a thick, scabby mess, but they were beginning to fade. They itched like hell and he was having a hard time displaying the self-control necessary to keep from scratching. His ribs didn’t smart as sharply as they did before, but he still restricted his movements greatly to keep from agitating them. His shoulder hadn’t felt like it had gotten much better. The pulled muscle still screamed at him and his shoulder blade didn’t feel quite right to him. The gunshot wound was starting to heal up, however. Leonie had already pointed out his previous gunshot he received a week before finding her, and she said that that was nearly just scar tissue already. To be fair, that shot hadn’t dug as deeply into his flesh as the second one, and he was easily able to ignore it.

„It’s weird,“ she commented. She worked her fingers through his hair, though didn’t make it far with the knotting. Hair care hadn’t been his highest priority.

„Weird,“ Kurt replied flatly. „That is your argument?“

„Okay, you know there’s snow outside already? And it’s still there? We wouldn’t need to keep this cabin as warm if you were wearing a shirt.“ She raised the scissors to his hair and took a chunk of it off. The strands fell to the stool with a soft whispering thump. She took a good few inches off the top of his head.

„I don’t think one little shirt is going to keep me much warmer than wearing no shirt,“ Kurt argued. „And I don’t think I’m ready to struggle into getting my arm through the sleeve. A shirt is more trouble than it’s worth.“

Leonie wasn’t being sentimental with this haircut. Now that she had started, she took more and more pieces from his head and let them drop all around him. Kurt wasn’t sure how evenly she was cutting, but he wasn’t entirely sure it mattered anyway. He hadn’t gotten a professional haircut in his life. „I think you’re being overly dramatic,“ Leonie observed.

„I have a tendency toward that,“ Kurt said. He neither agreed nor disagreed.

Kurt could see that Leonie had pursed her lips. „You’re still not going to wear a shirt,“ she said. It was almost a question, but not defeat.

„You have not convinced me of the error of my ways,“ Kurt pointed out calmly. He blew away a few pieces of hair that had landed on his nose.

Leonie sighed. „And see – if _I_ walked around with no shirt on, you’d throw a fit.“

„What reason do you have to not wear a shirt?“ Kurt asked. „You said so yourself that we already have snow that has stuck to the ground and your shirt keeps you warm. I don’t tend the fire to be roaring. I usually keep it fed just enough so that it doesn’t burn out. And you usually wear my hoodie.“

Leonie paused in tending his hair and looked down her front. Indeed, she wore the hoodie he had handed her in Germany. It was a little large for her, and the sleeves hung down over her wrists to her knuckles if she didn’t keep it tucked up. So far he had seen her take it off only to wash it. She scoffed and turned back to his hair. „What if I were to take it off to prove a point?“

„What point, sweetheart?“ Kurt asked innocently.

„Mostly that you would throw a fit.“

„Perhaps.“

Kurt had allowed Leonie to tend him after his struggles following the bath, but only grudgingly. Whispers of how inappropriate things could get between the two of them continued resounding inside his head. They were already close, but Kurt was adamant about the relationship becoming anything more. Sometimes, with exchanges such as this one, Kurt worried he’d have to let her down. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint her.

„So why am I not allowed to throw a fit?“ Leonie asked. Her attention was more to the effort she was putting into the haircut than the actual argument.

„I never said that you weren’t,“ Kurt clarified.

„You’re being infuriating on purpose,“ Leonie complained.

„I would never do such a thing.“ Kurt couldn’t help the grin that broke across his face. That was a very blatant lie.

„I know what you’re doing,“ Leonie said. She was beside him, holding scissors to his head, so he couldn’t question her with a mere look. He didn’t say anything anyway. She held a pause, as if expecting him to acknowledge her accusation, but continued on when he didn’t. „I’ve known for a while. You’re acting all proper and holy, but it’s completely out of place, considering the dystopia we live in.“

„Holy?“ Kurt asked.

„I don’t know. Like you’re trying to be wholesome and dedicated to an outdated scripture. I couldn’t think of a better word.“

„Okay,“ Kurt said slowly. He could tell she had more to say, so he left the air empty for her.

„In situations like this, you act like we should just be friends, but we’re not. I need you as much as you need me. And lately, you needing me has been a very demanding task. No offense. But it’s more than that. When we fall asleep, I know the way you hold me. You hold just as tightly as you did the first night I fell asleep in your arms. When you didn’t know me, but you were just trying to keep me warm. And I’ll admit, knowing you’re there is probably the only reason I can go to sleep. I’ve slept more soundly next to you than I have since they took my mom away from me.“ Kurt started and began to move, but she smacked him in the skull with the closed tip of the scissors. She had never mentioned her mother before this. „Don’t move. I’ll cut your ear off.

„But when it comes to things like this, it’s like you’re still trying to protect me. Keeping me safe from my night demons is one thing. But I can’t help but know you’re protecting me from _you._ “

„Beyond my complete and utter dependence on you, there isn’t much more I can do to you,“ Kurt said.

„Oh no. You know what I’m talking about. You’re afraid that I’ll go all Stockholm on you or something.“

„Sometimes I’m worried things will become inappropriate,“ Kurt confessed. „Though I can’t say I’d have used Stockholm Syndrome as an excuse.“

„I may not be as old as you, Kurt, but I am an adult that can come to my own conclusions. I’m capable of free thought.“ She used her fingers on the nape of his neck and forehead to gently tip his head downward to better cut the hair away from the back of his head. „I just thought I’d let you know.“

„I never said that you weren’t….“

„No, you never said,“ Leonie agreed. „It’s all about how you act. Funny thing that with all the stories about the things you went through with the X-Men and Excalibur, your character was almost never mentioned. Truly, you were usually portrayed as a bad guy until you associated with Captain Britain. I didn’t expect you to be such a prude.“

Kurt tried a grin, but it faltered under the perceived gravity of the conversation. „You would not be saying that if the situation were different,“ he promised her.

„Different how?“ Leonie asked. She sounded genuinely curious rather than critical.

„I like attention. I was born and raised into it. Attention from a pretty woman that would do anything other than scream at me – I kindled that. Sometimes I acted over the top even if that woman wasn’t interested.“

„Womanizer,“ Leonie interjected.

„Ah … not that as much. Just an innocent flirt.“

„So why am I different?“

„Because I also know my boundaries,“ Kurt explained firmly.

„And I’m outside the boundaries,“ Leonie observed. „But why?“

„I understand you were a slave and times have been tough for the past year and a half, but you are still young,“ Kurt said. „And I am not. It is not proper.“

Leonie stepped around him and readjusted his head to look at her.

„And now? Now I cannot lose you on top of that. Does this bother you?“

„Stop trying to protect me and let me make my own decisions,“ Leonie demanded.

„This is my decision,“ Kurt told her. „Not an imposition on your will.“

Leonie still hadn’t gone back to cutting his hair. „So you’re going to deliberately cut a part of yourself off from me forever and continue acting like a prude to me?“

„Ah … yes.“ In short.

She sighed, repositioning herself beside him. More hair fell to the ground.

„I must ask, is this not what you would prefer? You want more?“

„I don’t know,“ she answered in a soft tone.

„I’m begging you. Do not let this bother you. You have much bigger problems to worry about.“

„Oh, and ninety-nine of them concern you in other ways,“ Leonie joked. Kurt could hear the smile in her voice now.

„It’s a talent,“ Kurt commented cheekily to add on to the lighter direction the conversation had taken.

„So have I convinced you to start wearing a shirt?“ she asked.

He chuckled, but gave her no answer.

Leonie didn’t take much longer on his hair. She took a step back to admire her handiwork, and then broke up in a bout of laughter. Kurt reached up with one hand to run his fingers through his hair. She hadn’t taken it terribly short, but it was much more manageable than before. „What’s wrong with it?“ he asked.

„I am _not_ a hairdresser, that’s for sure,“ she giggled.

„Seeing as I can’t see it, you’re the only one it matters to,“ Kurt said. He glanced down at the hair on the stool and ground. She had taken a lot off. It made his neck and ears feel colder, but overall his head felt lighter and cleaner.

„Get all the loose hair you can off your head and get out of here,“ Leonie instructed.

Kurt did as asked, whisking his fingers through his freshly cut hair to tease out the loose strands. After a couple run-throughs, he considered everything that would be freed had been, and promptly teleported to the couch.

Without complaint, Leonie swept the hair off the stool onto the ground, and then grabbed the broom and dustpan to get it off the floor. It looked like he’d birthed a kitten with all the hair that Leonie had deposited outside. When she returned, she replaced the footstool by the door and joined him on the couch.

„I guess I should be grateful for the cold weather,“ Leonie acknowledged. She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. Right shoulder. Kurt grimaced at the pain it caused, but didn’t shoo her away. „The deer I got earlier would just rot away if it wasn’t cold.“

Indeed, Leonie had shot her first game that morning. She hadn’t given Kurt any details about it, but she was gone for most of the day. Hunting for food was necessary since the previous cabin owner’s stock had been completely depleted. Leonie was adamant they would get food tomorrow, but no earlier. For today, she was bushed.

„You locked it up where other predators can’t get to it?“ Kurt asked.

„I hope so. It’s in the cellar shed thing. I couldn’t think of anywhere else where to put it.“ Kurt was still trying to figure out how she got an entire deer to the cabin. When the shot woke him up, it was distant.

„What are you going to do with it?“ Kurt asked. Leonie had mentioned that she grew up in the dead center of Berlin. Berlin didn’t have a lot to offer by way of hunting and deep woods survival skills. Kurt, despite his many more years of experience at living, wasn’t in a much better position. Even if he knew how to deal with a felled deer, he was physically capable of nothing. He couldn’t get out there to supervise and advise, let alone get out there and take over the project.

„I’m going to cook it up and eat it, silly,“ Leonie said jovially. She twisted and poked him gently above the belly button. Kurt unwillingly inhaled a sharp breath as the weight of her head dug into his shoulder, but he said nothing more. Leonie didn’t seem to notice.

„Oh, yeah?“ Kurt asked. The tone of his voice was incredibly amused. „And how are you to do that, sweetie? It’s an entire deer right now, or?“

Leonie sighed and settled gently against him again. Kurt couldn’t crane his neck to look at her. She was at the corner of his vision, and that was only the top of her head. „I know. I suppose the first step is to skin it. I’m kind of making this up as I go along.“

Kurt smiled grimly. He couldn’t help it. „You and I both, my dear.“

She grinned against his shoulder. He could feel the subtle movements of the facial muscles. „Yeah, about that … you should quit that. It didn’t work out so well for you last time.“

Kurt started and moved to playfully shove her off, but the sharp twinge in his shoulder stopped him. He knew he gasped out loud despite himself, eliciting a chuckle from the offending party. He had no choice but to settle back against the couch. „You win this time,“ he muttered in a mock ominous tone.

She giggled again, pulling herself up just to swing over into his lap. Kurt’s eyes widened. His left hand flew up between them; his right still smarted from trying to move quickly mere seconds before. Leonie leaned forward, her belly against his hand, putting her face inches away from his. Oh, how Kurt would eat this up before the rise of the Nation. He appreciated a sassy woman in bed. If he wasn’t careful, he would fall for Leonie. And he’d lose her. And he’d be left with nothing.

„Oh, Kurt, I always will win.“

„Leonie,“ Kurt said in a low voice. He wasn’t sure how to get her off of him. Her move crossed the line that Kurt had tried to erect as soon as he knew she was sticking around.

Leonie had pulled back slightly, her eyes were focused on his right shoulder. His torso. Kurt’s hand was still up between them, and he offered another light push against her middle. Her focus snapped back to his eyes. Very few people held Kurt’s gaze successfully. He didn’t have pupils or irises to fixate on. Yet Leonie, at this moment, was an instantaneous master.

„Relax,“ Leonie instructed.

„A little difficult,“ Kurt said. His words were more strangled than intended.

Leonie reached past his arm to poke him in the chest. „Prude,“ she repeated gently.

„Doch,“ Kurt argued weakly.

She sighed, her posture sinking slightly. „That’s not what this is about, anyway. I know better than that. But I think it’s time you heard my story.“

„Your story?“ Kurt repeated. His voice raised a little too high for such a simple question.

„Yeah. My story as a slave. I’m young and I’m thin. I was immediately bought out once I was taken to the slave house. It wasn’t for some Cinderella-type crap, you know.“

„Leonie,“ Kurt interrupted quietly. „You don’t need to explain yourself to me.“

„I think I do,“ Leonie said.

„Why?“

„The way I see it, you’re treating me as if I’m a child. I’m not a child, Kurt.“

„And that’s probably what I thought when I was your age,“ Kurt said softly. She was wrong, though. He didn’t think of her as a child. He wouldn’t dare bring her on such a dangerous adventure, even before he was made a cripple, if he thought that she couldn’t handle it. Leonie had a strength to her. Kurt felt it. Though he wasn’t sure if Leonie did yet.

„Were you ripped away from your mother at seventeen and made into a sex slave?“ Leonie asked impatiently.

Kurt broke her eye contact, his eyes slinking to a point in the room. „Not quite, but close.“

This seemed to give Leonie pause, but only for a moment. „What?“

Kurt returned his eyes to her. „Unfortunately, sweetheart, that is not a story I’m willing to tell.“ She hesitated, almost looked uncomfortable. Kurt continued, trying to keep things vague, but informative enough to placate her. „That is about the age I was when my life as I knew it fell apart. I wasn’t a sex slave, no, but I was a drugged freak. A demon monster. Finally exposed for _what_ I was.“ He relaxed his hand against her torso and lifted it to her nearest shoulder. „I don’t need to hear your story to relate, Leonie.“ He ran his fingers gently through her curtains of hair. „But I’m still standing firm in that a sexual relationship is inappropriate, okay?“ He prodded his fingers softly into the back of her shoulder, pulling her closer to him in a half hug. More softly, he added, „I can’t hurt you and lose you, Leonie.“

„You’re not going to hurt and lose me,“ Leonie argued. Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. She put a hand on either side of him against the couch and pushed away. „For a year I was a play-thing for some messed up guy with influence in the Nation. Why can I not repay you the way I _want_ to?“

„No,“ Kurt said firmly. „First of all, you have _nothing_ to repay. What did I even do to you for you to think you are indebted to me? If anything, you have repeatedly saved _my_ life since crashing landing in Canada. _I_ am in debt to _you._ Understand? Second, that is not how you repay someone, Leonie. That isn’t how I work, nor should it be how you do.“ The only time Kurt ever saw a sexual favor as icing on the cake after a good save was when it involved his already-established girlfriend.

Leonie flipped her hair over her shoulder, and then looked down at him with squinted eyes. „Okay. What if I’m horny and just want sex? You know, with a man I trust?“

Kurt’s breath caught in his throat. It took him a couple tries to open up the passages and actually get in a breath. For whatever reason, he was not expecting Leonie to answer in such a fashion.

He still couldn’t get past the age gap. He couldn’t get over the fact that before she even met him, she worshipped him as a hero. And, most importantly, he couldn’t get over the feeling that the deeper he cared about a person, the more chance there was of their life getting screwed over because of him. He didn’t view her in the light she wanted him to. Sure, if she continued pushing at his buttons, he certainly could fall for her, but he didn’t want to.

„Are you okay?“ Leonie asked. She didn’t sound terribly concerned.

„Yeah, fine,“ Kurt assured her. He swallowed. „Hear this: Even if I did concede … I can’t.“ He briefly bit his lower lip. „Since the crash, I don’t have that function.“

Leonie rocked back on his legs, balancing herself carefully upright. „Oh, I’m so sorry,“ she said quickly. „I didn’t realize…“

A jolt of excited energy jumped through Kurt’s body at her weight shift. He couldn’t formulate the thoughts as fast as his emotions. „Leonie,“ he said. His voice was a little louder than he expected. Leonie flinched, mistaking the renewed vigor in his voice as anger. „No, no,“ Kurt assured her quickly. „No. I think I just _felt_ that.“

Leonie’s face scrunched up in confusion. „Felt what?“

„I think I felt my legs.“

Surprise crossed her face instead. „What? Really?“

„I’m not sure. Get up.“ He would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved to have an excuse to make her position less intimate.

Leonie clambered to her feet and stood over him. „How can you figure it out for sure?“ she asked.

Kurt used his good hand to feel along his legs, pushing gently against his quads with the tips of his fingers. He was almost certain he could almost feel the pressure near the outside of his upper thighs. Tears sprang to his eyes from the overwhelming emotion. Of course, feeling pressured in a very isolated area could mean nothing. But it also insinuated that his spine didn’t break into his spinal cord and sever it.

„I guess time will tell,“ Kurt said meekly. He did his best to blink back the tears. Crying was the source of great emotion, but it had no place in this particular situation.

He pointed toward the bedroom. „Come,“ he commanded. Without further comment, he teleported from the couch to the bed. He used the time it took Leonie to get to the bedroom to spread prone on the mattress.

„Kurt?“ Leonie questioned from the doorframe. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she was confused. While he may have used the presence of feeling as a dodge, he was glad it was a natural transition. But the previous vein of thought and the current vein were two very different subjects. „What are you doing?“

„Press your fingers along my spine, from ribs down, to see how much I can feel,“ Kurt instructed. He tossed her a big smile. „Please?“

Kurt was thrilled. Much more than he ought to be. He couldn’t have been sure that he truly even felt the touch. He wasn’t sure what he expected this experiment to tell him, either. Yet the prospect of him possibly getting his legs back was incredible.

Leonie sighed and stalked forward. She climbed up onto the bed and once again swung her leg over his body so that she was straddling him. Kurt could feel the pressure of her weight through the mattress, but he couldn’t directly feel her against him.

„Are you sitting on me?“ Kurt asked. He couldn’t see far enough to actually tell.

„Yes,“ Leonie replied.

„Where?“ he asked. It took a little effort to keep the grumble he felt out of his voice.

It took Leonie a moment to answer. When she did, he could detect a little confusion. „Um. Right below your butt. I’m not sitting on your tail. That’s over here.“ He couldn’t feel her grab his tail, but he did hear the soft thump when she dropped it back against the bed. Knowing that she had grabbed his tail sent a little shiver up his back. No one usually dared.

Leonie leaned down over him, sweeping her hands from somewhere on his lower torso, up the sides of his back, all the way to his shoulders. She did soften the pressure once she got near the shoulder blade on his right side. He could begin to feel the touch around his kidneys. He wasn’t going to lie; the touch felt wonderful, but it was not what he needed out of this situation. „That’s not what I meant,“ Kurt scolded. His voice didn’t come out strong enough. His protest fell short.

She pressed her body against him and held her face inches away from his exposed ear. „I’ll get there,“ she said softly. She lifted herself off him again, though her hands hardly moved from his shoulders. In fact, she was kneading the thumb of her left hand into the muscle. The right hand explored further down his spine, where she thought she could press more of her weight against him.

„I have broken ribs, too, sweetheart,“ Kurt grumbled. They hadn’t caused him much problem compared to everything else. He got used to the fact he couldn’t breathe as deep to keep from agitating them too much. Leonie’s weight caused them sharp protest.

She swore softly, pulling her weight quickly off of his right side and transferring it to the bed beside him. „I forgot,“ she apologized.

„It goes,“ Kurt said. He hadn’t mentioned his ribs since the first day. He wasn’t surprised she had forgotten. „But this is not what I called you in for!“

Leonie clicked her tongue at him in reprimand. „So impatient,“ she observed.

„Perhaps,“ Kurt agreed noncommittally.

„Which ribs are broken?“ Leonie asked, as if he had said nothing at all.

Kurt gestured as best he could with his left arm. By no means could it reach his right side with Leonie in the way. „Middle of the ribcage,“ he said. „It’s best if you don’t put pressure on that entire side.“

Leonie worked her hand down the left side of his spine, pushing her fingers with the muscle. „This side is fine?“ she asked.

Kurt harrumphed in response. It felt good, her fingers working out the stiffness in his muscles, but Kurt didn’t want to be comforted right now.

„You know, I can feel every bone back here. I know backs don’t give a lot of protection in fat and muscle, especially in someone as lean as you, but I feel you’re _too_ lean.“

„Probably,“ Kurt agreed. „I haven’t eaten very well this past year, sweetheart. When bodies don’t get enough nutrition, they eat themselves.“

Leonie was quiet for a moment. She continued working her hand up and down his left side, massaging his back. „I’m sorry,“ she said eventually.

„Why?“ Kurt asked flatly. She was lulling him to sleep. Even the sharpness of his excitement was fading away with every stroke of her fingers.

„I don’t know. I’m sorry you’re starving, I guess. You haven’t had it easy since the Nation, have you?“

„No,“ Kurt confirmed. „No one really has. It’s nothing you can do, though. Don’t worry about it.“

„What were you doing in Germany, Kurt?“ She laid down against him again, making sure that most of her weight was on his left side. With her right hand, she lightly traced circles against his skin where she knew he could feel it.

Kurt sighed, then had a difficult time filling his lungs again. He didn’t reprimand her this time for it. „I thought the country needed me. America has plenty of superhero groups. Who does Germany have?“

„But what were you _doing?“_ Leonie asked again.

„I watched over the markets,“ Kurt explained. „They didn’t pop up at first, so I just watched the people. Took down the Nation soldiers that were being extra nasty before the Nation really had its order. Continued doing so afterwards. I had to keep moving around once the Nation knew of me. I almost got caught not long before I met you. I was in a castle, helping a dying woman. The job felt thankless, but I thought I was doing good up until that night. I wasn’t really sure about it anymore after that night.“

„What changed that night?“

„I’m not sure. Maybe I realized how little I was doing. It gives strength in numbers, sweetheart. That’s why I wanted to get to America. Kitty told me a group formed up again against the Nation.“

Leonie sighed and continued to trace shapes into his back. „So that’s all you did for a year? Watched over people and beat up Nation soldiers when you could?“

„Yeah.“

„No one but you. Hardly eating.“

„Yeah.“

„Oh, Kurt. I think my slave master treated me better than that. I actually got a couple meals a day. He had money to keep me fed. And, while his company was repulsive for the most part, I was never alone until right before I met you.“

Kurt wasn’t sure of what to say to that. So he left the air silent.

She sat up again. His lungs filled with as much air as they could against the broken ribs. She touched him lightly on his right side, more forcefully on his left. She wasn’t massaging any longer; she was fulfilling his request. Her fingers jabbed not unpleasantly into his muscle on the left, drew lines from spine to side on the right. She moved methodically downward, from the bottoms of his scapula to the top of his ass.

„Again,“ Kurt instructed after her first pass.

She snickered. „I thought you didn’t want a massage.“

Kurt puffed, but didn’t offer a protest. It was futile in this case. He let her fingers wander down his back, paying very close attention to where the feeling fizzed out. This time, he stopped at the line. „Closer to the spine, please. Just there.“ He closed his eyes to concentrate, and eventually had her stop.

„What did that tell you?“ Leonie asked. She still perched on his legs.

„Where the disconnect happened in my spine. Tell me, did you feel anything around there on or around my spine?“

He vaguely felt her fingers run up and down his spine, pressing lightly. „It might be a little swollen, actually. It’s hard to tell with you, but you’re not blue here. You’re purple and black. In fact, most of your back is discolored, but not as badly as here.“

„Could I ask you to roll me over?“ Kurt asked sweetly.

„No more massage?“ Leonie asked cheekily.

„Correct,“ Kurt said with a grin.

„Shame,“ Leonie commented passively. She swung off his legs to settle beside him. Using his side and good shoulder, she helped push him over to his back. Kurt had to bite back an involuntary protest for his bad shoulder, but he was in a position where he was ready to sleep. Leonie promptly curled up against his side, as was now customary. Instead of curling up to sleep, however, she craned her neck up to look at his face. „So what does that mean?“ she asked.

„What does what mean?“

„Your back? Feeling your legs? The big bruise? What does it all mean?“

„I don’t know,“ Kurt said softly. He let the silence drag. When Leonie had returned to the cabin, the sun was still shining as brightly as it could through the Canadian forest’s canopy. The darkness of dusk was finally coming down upon them. „I can’t be sure there _was_ feeling in my legs,“ he finally admitted. „In amputees, some people reported still being able to feel phantom pains and itches in their missing limbs. Maybe that’s all I was feeling. In that case, the bruise would be all the broken blood vessels under my skin around my spine where it broke. Or … the bones didn’t break at all. I just cannot know.“

Leonie lowered her head, pressing herself more against him. „I guess we’ll see,“ she said.

„Truth,“ Kurt replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter that I have written yet.


	10. Chapter 10

„Kurt, you at some point have to get out of bed. You cannot always lay in bed.“ Leonie stood at the bedroom door with her arms crossed firmly over her chest. While her stature was not tall, she appeared to be looming over Kurt’s form curled up in bed.

The feeling was coming back. At least, it was partially. He or Leonie could touch the upper outside of his thighs and his brain would vaguely receive the touch signal. Unfortunately, with the little sensation he regained in his legs, pain started building up in his spine around the place he started losing feeling. Above where he stopped feeling, actually.

With the addition of pain, not always but oft triggered by movement, Kurt tried staying as still as he could. „Nerve repair,“ he had explained to Leonie. With the brain sorting out its reconnection with the nerves in his lower spine, the only thing it could think to do was send out pain signals.

Kurt was both grateful and vexed about the pain. On one hand, the return of both touch and pain signals meant that his spinal cord hadn’t been severed by a vertebral fragment in the crash. His spine was most likely intact. He had a better chance of making a partial recovery if the nerve connections weren’t completely cut off from one another. He knew better than to hope he’d make a full recovery. However, for repossessing a part of his body, he was grateful.

On the other hand, Kurt was more afraid than anything that he’d not only be rendered crippled for the remainder of his life, but that the nerve pain would become chronic.

Nerve pain was vastly different than what pain receptors under the dermis perceive. It was a deep seated pain that blocked almost all other feelings and thoughts. Shifting into a more comfortable position was impossible. And to make matters worse, Kurt swore that sometimes he could feel pain streaking all the way down through his legs and tail where he still didn’t have the sensation of touch.

Kurt mumbled indistinctively into his pillow. He lay prone on the surface of the bed, uncovered except for one corner of the comforter he’d pulled over his butt.

Leonie sighed a hearty sigh and shifted against the doorframe. „What is wrong?“

„Pain. So much pain,“ Kurt mumbled.

Leonie dropped her head dramatically with her chin up against her chest. She drew in a deep breath. „Your spine again?“ she asked softly. Her posture may not have been exactly friendly, but her tone of voice was sympathetic.

„Ja,“ Kurt agreed shortly. „Don’t worry. I’ll force myself to get up eventually,“ he added through gritted teeth. The pillow further filtered his voice. „But right now, it’s too unbearable to move or even ‘port out of here.“

Things were made worse by the fact that his shoulder still hadn’t healed up properly. Kurt only had a couple weeks of numb paralysis before the nerves started kicking in. Doubled with Kurt’s stubborn restlessness, his shoulder wasn’t healing up very quickly. The break was bad to begin with, and him using that arm to get around was exacerbating it rather than allowing the bone to set and scar over. Similarly, the muscle he’d strained thereabout wasn’t getting any better.

While Kurt’s bones, muscles, and nerves may not have been faring well, Kurt’s skin was returning to its natural state. His arm and shoulder were profoundly itchy as the skin healed. In some places, the scabs were pulling away naturally to reveal young flesh, not yet furred out.

The gunshot from the castle was only a distant memory anymore, the fur having grown in to almost perfectly hide the scar. The shot from the marketplace was likewise nearly finished healing, at least on the surface. The muscle still pulled sharply from deep within, like he was being stabbed with a needle internally.

Leonie sighed once more and crossed the short distance between the doorframe and Kurt’s side of the bed. She sat down and gently placed her hand on his knee, despite his inability to feel the gesture.

„Kurt, I’m worried for you,“ she told him.

„Worried for me?“ Kurt mumbled to her. „Why is that?“

Leonie didn’t have a chance to answer Kurt’s inquiry. A rattling knock sounded against the door. Human in origin. Leonie’s head jerked promptly to the front door of the cabin, all her senses alert. Kurt’s muscles he had control over stiffened immediately.

“Oh, shit, the door’s already open,” the man knocking said. It sounded like he was talking over his shoulder at someone else, rather than a surprised exclamation to himself.

Leonie looked back over to Kurt, her face stricken with panic. „Kurt, they’re not speaking German!“

„Why would they?“ Kurt hissed back to her. „We’re in Canada. Canadians speak English or French.

“Hey, I see smoke coming out of your chimney. Who’s here?”

„Kurt, what are they saying?“ Leonie asked in a panicked whisper.

“This door’s been kicked in,” a new voice observed with interest.

“Yeah, point?” the other man asked flatly. Property ownership and therefore property destruction wasn’t exactly high on the list of importance under the Nation. It wasn’t a government monopoly any longer.

„They know someone’s here,“ Kurt told Leonie. „You need to intercept them. If they’re Nation, you can’t act suspicious. If they’re not, you can’t let them take our cabin.“ Leonie hesitated, panic stricken. „Go!“ Kurt urged in a more urgent whisper.

„I can’t communicate with them!“ Leonie argued anxiously.

„Go,“ Kurt repeated with a low growl. „They cannot discover me; I cannot speak for you.“ Kurt didn’t need to explain to her why. If they recognized him, they could be in for deeper trouble.

Leonie whimpered quietly as she closed the distance between the bed and the front door. By the time she made it to the front of the cabin, the first man had already opened the door and peered inside. Still panicked, Leonie had to catch herself from looking behind her to see if Kurt was visible from the doorway. That would be too suspicious.

„Hey!“ she said as sharply as she could. „Who are you?“ She used informal language, not because she thought it was appropriate, but because there was a better chance of them understanding the informal variances of words than formal variances.

The man swiveled his head to regard her. “What? Are you Rammstein? ‘Duuuuu. Du hast….’”

Leonie squinted at him like he was some sort of idiot. Thankfully, she understood English enough to understand those simple words. She may have flunked English class in school, but that was entry level.

The second man stepped into the cabin. “Are you alone?” he asked her. He scanned the cabin with a scrutiny the first man did not possess. His eyes even lingered in the bedroom area. Leonie found herself holding her breath. The English he spoke was not familiar to her. While she understood it was a question he asked, she didn’t know how to answer him.

„I don’t speak English,“ she told them. Her voice quivered.

The first man studied her. “I don’t speak German,” he quipped.

Leonie swallowed nervously. She had to try. “Are you … Nay … schon?” she asked in English with her heavy accent. She couldn’t be sure if she’d said the correct thing. It followed the word pattern they’d been using and she could only hope that it was the phrase she thought it was.

“Yeah,” the first man replied. He thrust his chin upwards. “We are Nation. Is that a problem?”

Leonie stared blankly at him. His first word wasn’t hard to understand. His misplaced pride was as plain as day. After that, her understanding fell apart.

“How did a German speaker make her way here?” the second man questioned slowly. He walked the cabin, checking every square inch. Leonie knew better than to stop him. Impeding him was as bad as impeding a super villain. Yet super villain these people were not.

Now Leonie had an excuse to turn around, not just to check on how Kurt was doing, but also to extend her blank stare towards the second man. Making sure to keep her eyes from lingering long on the bed, she was satisfied to see that Kurt had somehow made it away. He must have teleported. Though he wouldn’t last long outside of the cabin, dressed like he was. The idiot still refused to wear a shirt.

“That’s a good question,” the first man replied to the second. Leonie swiveled back around to watch him. She didn’t understand any of their language anymore. “It’s not like this was her cabin before the rise of the Nation.” He watched her, studied her, like she was his prey. Leonie couldn’t help but squirm under the scrutiny.

She wanted to ask them what they were doing there. They appeared to be looking for something – or someone – and were coming up short. Yet they didn’t act desperately. They were taking their time, reveling in this discomfort Leonie was exuding. But that was all they seemed to want from her. Not her body or her labor, but to get off on her anxiety. Unfortunately, she knew that could only be a secondary benefit to their presence.

„Can I help you?“ Leonie asked. She remained informal and singular, and tried to keep her words concise. The first man recognized her language, while simultaneously poking a little fun at her, so maybe he had a chance of understanding her.

“Huh?” the man watching her asked. “What’s a hell fin?”

„Helfen … uh … ich helfe dich?“ Leonie tried further simplifying her language. In this instance, she felt like she was speaking to a toddler: “I help you.” She even added some gestures, pointing to herself when she said “I” and the first man when she said “you.” She knew no gesture for help. She really wanted to ask if she could help them find anything so that they could be on their way, but she knew she had no chance in getting those words across.

“I think she wants to know what we’re doing,” the second man said. He was picking through the kitchen cupboards, coming up with nothing. Leonie and Kurt had already finished everything off within. “My guess is she thinks she can offer something up, maybe get us out of here.” He finished checking the cupboards and turned around to look at the two of them. “I don’t need to speak her language to understand that.”

The man watching Leonie snorted. Not a true laugh, but enough cruel amusement to make Leonie cringe. She’d had enough of these types of people in her life already.

“Something’s odd about this situation,” the man searching the cupboards commented. He turned from the kitchenette and regarded his Nation buddy.

“What do you mean?” he asked in return. He pulled his eyes away from Leonie. She was beginning to reel from her lack of understanding, but she stayed put.

“This cabin is picked clean,” he said. “And I don’t think she’s just passing through.” His eyes scanned the fire place, and then the bedroom. “She looks pretty healthy. It just doesn’t add up.”

Leonie’s eyes darted between the two men. While she felt frustration because of the language barrier, her mounting fear of what they could be saying was more the issue. She was certain she could feel the intention behind the words.

“This is a cabin in the middle of nowhere,” the man continued. “Every other building we’ve come across on this island is abandoned. This is more of a vacation hotspot before the Nation, where people only really visited for the summer. And, once the Nation rose, people stayed in cities, where it was easier to live. What is a German child doing here?”

The first man studied Leonie suspiciously. Leonie’s eyes widened. Panic started taking over. Her chest heaved with shorter and choppier breaths.

“I’m goin’ outside to check the shed we saw on our way in. You keep watching her in here.”

The first man nodded his understanding. Leonie was sure that oxygen was no longer making its way through her body when the second man moved, but then he was out the door.

Cold air spilled in from outside. They hadn’t bothered propping the door shut again while they searched the house. The second man still hadn’t done anything about the open door on his way back outside. While Leonie was panicked, she was starting to chill down. Kurt’s fire from the night before was nearly dead, just a couple of unfinished smoldering logs. They weren’t enough to give off adequate heat.

„What are you going to do with me?“ Leonie asked in a low voice. She couldn’t help but think that if the men wanted to take her away, there was nothing she nor Kurt could do to stop them. Leonie couldn’t even think of how Kurt was or what he was doing over the fear for herself. She didn’t think that she could handle being a slave again, especially after her time with Kurt. In the short time she’d been with him, no one had treated her better than him in her entire life. Her mother was too busy to give her attention. Even though she had told Kurt that she was ripped away from her mother before her eighteenth birthday, it didn’t mean that her mom was always there.

“I don’t understand you, lady,” he said with a humorless grin. “And you don’t understand us. What’s the point?”

Leonie pursed her lips. She willed herself to keep from crying. She had too many strong emotions running through her body to keep under control.

She wanted Kurt back. Even though he was physically incapable of doing anything to protect her, she felt safer with him around. He could understand what these men were saying. If he could act as a translator, or simply be the only mouthpiece between their side and the low level soldiers’ side, Leonie didn’t think she’d have the level of anxiety that she felt now. She regretted letting him teleport away. Having him nearby was an asset, even if they recognized exactly who he was and ended up approaching them differently than they would a lone, small female.

The man didn’t return from outside in a timely fashion. Leonie used the time to concentrate on not breaking into a panic attack and on keeping her façade calm.

When the soldier did reenter through the front door, he threw Leonie a quizzical look. “This chick’s got a deer hanging in the shed,” he said to his partner.

“A … deer?” he asked. He sized her up from head to toe. “How the hell did she manage that?”

“I don’t think she’s alone,” the guy replied. “There’s no way this twig killed, dragged, and hung a deer. It didn’t happen today, but the flesh isn’t old either.”

“Did you look for someone else out there?” the first guy asked.

The second man shook his head. “No signs of anyone.”

Leonie squirmed under his unrelenting scrutiny. He refused to look away since stepping back into the cabin.

“You sure you don’t speak English?” the second man asked of her.

Leonie looked, startled, between the two soldiers. No one could mistake that that was a question directed at her. What he had said, however, was not clear to Leonie.

“I don’t think so,” the first man said. “She’s had way too much opportunity to reply to us. She’s being cooperative.”

“Well, even if she isn’t alone, it doesn’t matter,” the second guy sighed. “There’s nothing useful here. Even she is more of a liability if we had to take her back to mainland.”

“Let’s go, then,” his partner said. “I’m already feeling cooped up in this small cabin.”

And then the men left. They simply turned and walked out the door. They didn’t even have manners enough to shut the door behind them.

Leonie remained frozen on the spot. She didn’t believe that they’d simply leave her behind. Ever since the rise of the Nation, someone had always wanted something from Leonie, whether or not Leonie wanted to give them something. The men would be back. She was sure of it.

She had no sense of time as she waited for their return. She made no move to shut the door behind them and cut off the draft. Kurt’s fire from the night before offered nothing by way of warmth and comfort. Her body shivered uncontrollably, but she was too afraid to do anything about it.

„Liebchen,“ a voice prompted from behind her. From the couch sitting next to the fireplace. She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. „Liebchen,“ it said softly again. Leonie was deaf to his call, immobilized by fear. „Leonie,“ Kurt finally said, his voice more forceful than before.

Leonie jumped, spun around to face him. Her heart beat in her throat, and even seeing her broken guardian instead of some imposter did nothing to slow its rhythm.

„They’re gone, Liebchen,“ Kurt told her. „You may shut the door.“

Leonie didn’t want to approach the door. Kurt couldn’t be right. The Nation soldiers wouldn’t leave her alone. Even if they thought that all she had was days before death, they’d take her as a slave. That’s how the Nation worked. Kurt couldn’t fight for her. Leonie couldn’t fight for herself. She was destined to be a slave for the remainder of her life.

„Leonie,“ Kurt repeated. His voice was even harder than before. „Shut the door.“

She jerked forward to execute his command. It was something that had been programmed into her within the last year of her existence: do what you’re told or suffer. It didn’t matter that this command was coming from Kurt, whom would never lay a finger on her. The command had been spoken, and Leonie must oblige. She scooted the footstool across the cabin floor, pushing the door shut with its bulk until the door sat in its frame. From there, she didn’t move.

„Leonie,“ Kurt said again. This time, his voice was soft, but it still came across Leonie’s ears. „Come here, my dear.“

Leonie looked over her shoulder at him. She didn’t feel right. She hadn’t felt this helpless since before their first night together. She tasted freedom for a month with Kurt, and one visit from lowly Nation soldiers had her crashing back to old, hard learned habits.

„Please, dear?“

She waited no longer. Kurt’s tone was enough to break through her emotionless barrier and pull her towards him. She staggered forward, nearly crashing into his outstretched arms. He waited patiently. But what else could he do? He couldn’t come to her. When she pulled her body onto his lap, drawing in her arms and legs into a tight ball, she vaguely heard his involuntary squeak of protest, but she couldn’t help herself. A part of her deep down knew that handling him rough would hurt him, with his body broken everywhere, but she couldn’t stop herself. She finally felt like the child that she couldn’t help but feel Kurt was treating her as. Before she knew it, she was sobbing heavily onto his chest.

Kurt wrapped an arm gingerly over her back, but held his other one widely off to the side. His breath came hitched, but she could also tell that he was trying to hide it. Was it pain?

„I’m sorry, Leonie,“ he breathed almost imperceptibly into her ear. „I’m so sorry.“

Leonie couldn’t tell what he was sorry about. If anything, she should be sorry for hurting him. By hurtling into his lap, putting almost her entire weight on to him, she couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty. But her fear outweighed her guilt and she stayed.

When Leonie could muster no words, Kurt pressed himself closer into a harder hug. He still held his worse arm to the side, but his better arm was tighter around her chest. It was comforting, but even Kurt’s efforts to soothe her almost felt futile.

Eventually, Kurt’s grip on her loosened. He didn’t have the muscle stamina anymore, or maybe holding her in such a way pained him and he finally succumbed to it. Leonie couldn’t be sure, and she was certain Kurt would never tell her exactly how much he hurt. Even when he was barely cohesive, he still played off the pain rather than stay truthful. Of course, earlier and before the encounter with the Nation, he had told her that the pain was great. Unbearable, he said. But she still had a feeling that he was pushing himself too hard to ignore it. For her.

„Leonie?“ Kurt said softly.

She was done crying, but she was still hardly responsive.

„Leonie, will you answer me something?“

Leonie lightly lifted her head off his shoulder. His face twitched, but he quickly covered whatever had crossed his muscles. „What?“

„What do you want me to do for you? In case this happens again?“

Leonie blinked. Her head tilted to the side, as if she were a confused dog. „What do you mean?“

„This won’t be the only time Nation comes knocking at our door,“ he explained. „So what can I do for you to better prepare you for the next time it happens?“

„Are you sure you have to leave?“ she asked in a small voice.

His expression didn’t move. She was certain his eyes were locked on to hers, though it was difficult to tell with him. „Yes,“ he said with a sigh. He dropped the eye contact. „I am. I am an enemy of the Nation, and have been an enemy of the Nation since before the rise of the Nation. I’m too easily recognized. If you are seen with me, my troubles will follow you.“

At this point, Leonie wasn’t entirely sure if she cared to be branded an enemy of the Nation.

Considering Kurt’s level of power against the Nation when he was in optimum health, compared to Leonie’s effectiveness against any one person in the Nation, didn’t cross her mind. Kurt could singlehandedly handle a small army in Germany. He’d told her of it. He’d done so even after they’d met. Soldiers would want Kurt’s head on a platter. By association, they’d hate Leonie more than they’d ever hate her as a spitting girl. If Nation soldiers learned that Kurt had a friend, they’d use her to get to him. But Leonie didn’t think of that.

To them, if they knew who Kurt was and what he’d done, they wouldn’t care if he was a pained, paralyzed man doing the best he could for a young girl. They’d see him as the one man army he was in Germany – or as the outlaw X-Man fighting against them since before the rise of the Nation. And Leonie was expendable in their bid to pay him back for their pains.

Leonie was silent for a while, watching his face and every muscle twitch across it, while her numb mind processed what Kurt had asked. While she contemplated what all he meant.

„What can you do for me?“ she asked quietly.

Kurt swallowed, drew in a short breath, and let it out slowly. „That’s the problem. I don’t know.“ He pursed his lips briefly, sustained his avoidant look, and then continued even more lowly: „I should have listened to you before. I should have taught you how to fend for yourself against another human. Now I cannot.“

„I thought you said that teaching me to fight would get me killed,“ Leonie said. She couldn’t remember if he’d actually said such a thing or if it was implied. He’d mentioned it in Germany.

His head twitched to the side. „It very well could,“ he agreed. „But I need to do something for you, dear.“

Something in Kurt’s voice unsettled Leonie. The tone was almost as discomforting as the brief encounter with the Nation soldiers. She thought she pinpointed the uncomfortable feeling with his last sentence. He was scared, too.

Kurt, who acted so brave, either for himself or for her, was scared. He was powerless and it was finally catching up to him.

Leonie rocked back on his legs at the epiphany, pulling away from his weak hold. He looked back up at her face, alarmed.

„Liebchen?“

Her jaw hung open, her lips moving to form a word, but she couldn’t explain herself. Her hero was struggling and he was still concerned more for her than himself. Of that she was certain. Her hero throughout her childhood was a pulverized mess of broken bones and damaged nerves and he tried his best to hide it from her and act like things were normal. But he was still human. He was still scared. She’d been taking him for granted.

„Leonie, what is wrong?“ His eyes had grown wide when she couldn’t think of the correct words.

„I, uh, I’m sorry, Kurt,“ she said quickly. She needed to say something. „Nothing is wrong. I guess I just realized that … you’re scared, too. You just hide it better than me.“

Kurt’s face twitched again, though Leonie didn’t catch the brief expression. „Listen. There’s nothing wrong with being scared. Understand? I’ve had the experience to not succumb to it. You’re a very, very strong young woman with many horrors thrown at you for the past couple years. You may not need to hide your fear. That isn’t what I’m asking of you. I’m asking you to let me help you through it.“ He breathed in deeply. „That said, what can I do for you to help you?“

Leonie looked away and sighed. A part of her wanted to resume the tears and crash back into Kurt, but she held back. That wasn’t the strong response. She couldn’t be weak when Kurt was asking her to be strong. „I don’t know,“ she muttered.

Kurt nodded minutely. „Alright. We’ll figure it out later, yes?“ He craned forward, but ended up biting back a yelp of pain and fell heavily back to the couch. Licking his lips, he again played it off as if it hadn’t happened.

„Leonie?“

„Yeah?“

„Promise me that you won’t fear for me. And that you won’t hide things from me. Remember, it’s okay to be scared. I’ll have your back. No matter what.“

Leonie turned back to him, but continued to perch on his legs rather than snuggle back up to him or sit beside him. „Kurt. What if they try to take me next time? How can you help me then?“

He set his jaw. „I’ll find a way, my dear.“

„But how?“

„Don’t count me out yet,“ he said a little more humorously, with a wink.

Leonie threw him a sideways look, her brows pulled together and down. She wasn’t sure how Kurt could think of himself useful when a situation called for physical action.

Kurt sighed. “Well, anyway, please think about what you think you need to better prepare yourself for another Nation visit, yes? Any idea you have, throw it my way. I, uh, I wouldn’t mind laying down again. My body is starting to revolt.“

„Revolt?“ Leonie echoed, confused.

Kurt flattened his lips against each other. A hushing gesture. „My arm is not healing. In fact, it feels almost worse now than it did to begin. Perhaps it’s because my ribs are getting better. I don’t know. But I do know, from a medical standpoint, that I’m not doing myself any favors.“

„Then quit using it!“ Leonie shouted. She winced at the severity of her voice level. She didn’t mean to get excited enough to raise her voice.

Kurt grinned a humorless smile. „Ah, but it’s not so easy. However, I’ve been considering throwing it into a makeshift sling, as a reminder to myself. I’ll still be able to tend the fire,“ he added lightly.

„What do you need to make a sling?“ Leonie asked.

„A long sleeve shirt would do,“ he said. „I’ll need your help to tie it in the right places.“

„Yeah, no problem,“ she said. Shuffling gently, she peeled herself from his lap and walked quickly into the bedroom to rifle through the wardrobe. It didn’t take her long to return. She carried a wide red plaid shirt. Flannel, of course.

Kurt talked her through how to make the sling, having her tie the arms over his neck to keep his arm level. He even had her tie a knot at the bottom of her shirt to hold his elbow in place.

„This means you’re going to let yourself heal now, without bouncing around like an idiot, right?“ Leonie asked him seriously.

Kurt smiled, the expression reaching all the way to his eyes. „Liebchen, I might get my legs back. I probably shouldn’t permanently mess up my shoulder in the meantime.“

Leonie nodded once, hard. „Truth.“


	11. Chapter 11

„Kurt, please, make it stop,“ Leonie begged.

Kurt offered her no solace. He had to fight to keep a smile from forming across his lips. „I cannot, Liebchen,“ he told her sadly.

„I can’t handle it anymore.“

„Then quit your whining and focus!“ Kurt barked. Out of amusement, of course.

He figured that one of the best ways he could help Leonie was to get her into shape. They had the protein available to help with muscle building, though their other dietary supplies were almost completely lacking. Keeping a muscle mass without proper nutrition was difficult. Building on to what little already existed was nigh impossible. While Kurt had no choice but to watch his body deteriorate, he could at least do his best to help Leonie achieve a decent apocalyptic body.

For the moment, Kurt was having Leonie work on simple body exercises: pushups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, burpees, sprints, and similar workouts. He could tell that Leonie was struggling, fighting against fatigue and aching muscles, but she still pushed through. Her complaining had to accompany it, but Kurt didn’t begrudge her that small comfort. He was proud of her for attempting to make herself better, even when the distant world was crumbling all around them.

„One more set and you’re finished,“ Kurt encouraged.

Leonie blew a sharp breath through her lips, nearly spitting. She wasn’t exactly the happiest disciple Kurt could have imagined training.

The two of them were essentially marooned inside the cabin. Despite the thick canopy above them, several feet of snow still managed to fall and effectively trap them inside. Leonie spent an entire day trying to shovel the snow out from behind the door to get out to her shed. She didn’t have any snow clothes, nor did she have an actual shovel. Kurt admired her tenacity.

Moving the snow wasn’t easy. Since the door to the cabin opened inward, and the only thing holding the door shut was a lightweight footstool, the two of them woke up to the snow billowing in through the door. The sun filtering in through the dried layers of twigs above the cabin was their typical wake up call. This night, it was a cold breeze cutting through the cabin.

„What the -?“ Leonie asked groggily from beside Kurt. Her hand pressed lightly against his sternum as she craned upwards to try and find the source of the sharp cold. Kurt awoke to her movements.

„Liebchen?“ he questioned through a thick mouth.

„Is someone else here?“ Leonie called. The darkness was too much for her eyes to see in. Kurt, fortunately, had better night sight than her.

„No, we’re alone,“ he assured her. It wasn’t that he could see the entirety of the cabin from his place on the bed, but he didn’t feel threatened. Simply cold.

Leonie shifted into a sitting position before climbing gently over Kurt to set her feet on the ground. She squinted as she shuffled forward. „Oh. Kurt?“ she said flatly.

„What?“

„The front door is open. Oh, God, it snowed a couple feet. I think the snow pushed the front door open.“

Kurt grumbled under his breath and pushed himself into a sitting position to better see out the bedroom door. He still only had one arm to use. The other was still completely supported by the sling. He slept with it, he tended the fire with it, and he took care of any and all bodily and hygiene functions with it. The sling was helping ease the pain around his shoulder, and Kurt could only hope that that meant his shoulder was healing.

The same two weeks with the sling weren’t quite doing the same wonders to his legs. He was regaining sensation along his legs to his toes, as well as feeling back to his tail. But most of that sensation was still pain. His back ached, but his legs would send stabbing pain at random intervals up his spine. Sometimes it was all Kurt could do to bite back a cry of pain.

Leonie thought that Kurt was on the mend, no hitches or problems. Ever since the day the Nation visited them in their cabin, Kurt had done better to hide the ugly side of healing. He’d throw her smiles and encouragement without bogging her down with details or personal pain. She seemed to buy it. Her efforts went into improving their lockdown life rather than worry.

„It’s stupid to ask if you can just shut the door, isn’t it?“ Kurt muttered. He already knew the answer. The snow was built up in the doorway, blowing inwards. Pushing it back outside was an impossible task.

„Yeah,“ Leonie replied in the same flat voice as before. „What the hell do I push it outside with? The broom?“

Kurt tilted his head to the side at the thought. He figured using the broom to combat the snow was rather ingenious. „Why not?“ he asked.

Leonie rounded on him with a skeptical expression.

„No, really,“ Kurt insisted. „It’s better than using your hands. You have to move it somehow, nicht wahr?“

Shrugging rather than arguing, knowing that she had to get the front door shut before their cabin turned into an ice box, Leonie fetched the broom. The top layer whisked away easily enough, though half of each broom stroke flew back inside on the wind. The stuff nearer outside on the bottom was heavier. Leonie resorted to shoveling that much outside with her hands.

As soon as Kurt saw Leonie dump the broom, he teleported to the couch and threw more wood on the fire. Embers glowed peacefully at the bottom of the chimney, but they wouldn’t be enough to warm her up after moving Canadian snow with her bare hands in a blizzard. Already, the cabin had dropped to subfreezing temperatures, though the pair couldn’t guess how long the front door had been open.

Kurt was stroking flames back into existence by the time Leonie had gotten enough snow out of the doorway to fully shut the door. Once it was in place, she turned around, placed her back up against the wood, and stared at Kurt.

„Now what?“ she asked him. Her eyes were wide, but her lids were heavy. The poor girl was exhausted and cold, but if she moved away from the door again, it’d blow right back open.

He scanned the cabin from his seat on the couch. „Um, well, the only thing left heavy enough is that chair,“ Kurt said tentatively. He pointed across the living room to the chair neither of them had ever touched. Kurt needed the couch beside the fireplace to tend it, and it was unfeasible to move on a regular basis anyway.

Leonie’s eyes followed Kurt’s suggestion. She pursed her lips and blew out a disapproving breath.

„I’m sorry, Liebchen,“ Kurt added. He hated that he couldn’t help. He hated that all he could do was uselessly watch from the couch as she accomplished tasks that she should have had no part in. He hated that he knew he could do nearly everything that she did for them if only he hadn’t thrown himself off a plane. He bore the pain physically, but the emotional and mental turmoil were almost exclusively hers.

„Oh, shut up,“ she snapped halfheartedly. She pushed away from the door and crossed the room with a gnashing expression. Almost as soon as she moved, the door swung open again. While Leonie was initially incapable of letting out all of the snow to shut the door, more snow blew inside on the wind.

She worked as quickly as she could. The front legs of the chair she tried to maneuver were caught up on the rug and it wasn’t an easily moved chair. When she pushed, the legs would rock with her movement, straining at the joints rather than moving as a unit. Leonie ended up pushing the back and the front separately inches at a time to relocate the piece of furniture across the room. The progress seemed less grueling when she reached tile only, but the legs continued to get caught on the grout when each tile ended.

When she reached the door, she swung it shut, held it in place with her leg, and pulled the chair with a strained expression until the chair was close enough to keep the door from swinging widely open again. From there, she finished pushing the door shut with the chair and proceeded to collapse into it.

„Are you okay?“ Kurt asked.

„Fine. Tired.“ She yawned widely as if to prove a point.

Kurt patted the couch cushion next to him. „Join me by the fire? Warm up a bit before we go back to bed?“

„Can we not just crawl into bed and use each other to warm up? The fire can warm the cabin without your help.“

„As you wish,“ Kurt said. He turned to adjust the logs in the fireplace to make sure they wouldn’t crash out of their confines and then teleported back into bed. His place in bed was already cold.

She joined him shortly, climbing back over him and curling up against his torso. Her hands were freezing to the touch and he involuntarily jumped against the chill.

„Sorry,“ she mumbled into his skin.

They remained closely entwined until Kurt woke up and encouraged Leonie to do the same.

The day outside was drab. It wasn’t sunlight that woke Kurt up, but a simple internal timer. Of course, it was still brighter in the morning than it was in the middle of the night, but the thick cloud cover could easily have one mistake midday from twilight.

Leonie was a grumpy, puffing mess when she finished her last set. She eyed Kurt disdainfully, but he didn’t take it personally.

„Winter is less pretty in Canada than in Germany,“ she griped.

„Ja? How so?“ Kurt asked her.

„Because now I have to take care of it. And I swear it’s colder snow here.“

Kurt snickered. „It probably is,“ he told her. „Cities produce heat and are generally warmer than rural areas.“

„Quiet, smart guy,“ Leonie barked. „Or I’ll make you shovel a path to the shed.“

„Me? A physically challenged old man?“ Kurt threw her the most innocent eyes he could muster.

Leonie responded by rolling her eyes dramatically. „How do you suppose I do this? Put on extra pants and walk back and forth until I lose feeling in my feet?“

„I don’t know, dear,“ Kurt said soberly. „You don’t have a gardening shovel in the shed, at least? All you need to do is make sure that you can get to the deer in there.“

„I’m afraid that if I don’t clear away the snow, things will ice over and I won’t be able to get inside,“ Leonie said.

Kurt was quiet a moment. „Unlikely, but valid,“ he commented.

Leonie rolled her eyes again before dramatically turning around. „Make sure the fire is warm by the time I’m back,“ she instructed him. „Hopefully this won’t take that long.“

Kurt didn’t expect her to spend the Canadian-long day on it. Leonie would come inside periodically for a break to warm back up in front of the fire, but for the most part she was on her own outside. She didn’t update Kurt on her progress. In fact, she hardly said a thing to him. Sometimes, she’d grab another article of clothing to add to her person before going back outside. But all in all, she persevered.

When Leonie came back inside for the last time, she squatted in front of the fire with her fingers outstretched like any other time. Kurt stayed quiet, letting her dictate the mood.

„I am not lasting an entire winter like this,“ she finally muttered darkly.

„I am sorry, dear,“ Kurt said softly. It almost physically pained him that he couldn’t do anything to help. Maybe, he’d get full use of his legs back and that would be his exercise to get back into shape. He wished it could be that easy.

„I’m so cold,“ she complained into her chest. She inhaled deeply. „I guess I could use one of your workouts to warm back up in here?“

Kurt blinked. „What?“

„Are you going deaf now, too?“ Leonie asked.

Kurt wrinkled his nose in disdain. „Hush.“ Relaxing his face again, he explained himself: „I figured that, since you just spent an entire day outside doing what I can only image, you wouldn’t want to continue moving.“

„I don’t. But I’m cold. So make it quick today.“

Kurt nodded. Leonie knew herself best.

Getting into shape when previously very much out of it was difficult. „I can’t wait until you’re ready to join me in these stupid things,“ Leonie complained.

„I have my own exercises,“ Kurt sniffed. „They’re just … less intense than yours.“

In actuality, that was a lie. Kurt was working on building up his muscles just as much as Leonie, but instead of fighting physical neglect, he was fighting his confused nerves. Simple exercises to get his body moving where it hadn’t in a couple months was agonizing, and somehow he was able to hide it from Leonie. He wasn’t doing squats or mountain climbers or pull-ups, but he wished that was his workout instead.

„Remember,“ Kurt continued, “that this work out was entirely your idea. I was going to let you have a day off, considering your day.“

Leonie gathered her legs into her arms and stared up at him from the floor. She’d finally finished her last rep. All of her begging to Kurt, but it was her tenacity that kept her going. Kurt could have done nothing if she’d quit and called it a day. He’d even have respected her wishes.

„Walk it off,“ he suggested. „Don’t stagnate immediately. You’re warm now, so you need to let your body gradually cool.“

She rolled her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time, but did as she was told. She paced the room slowly.

As she walked, Kurt worked on his legs. He grabbed his feet and moved his legs with his hands, ignoring the shooting and stabbing pains that it caused. Somehow, he kept his face straight and Leonie thought that he was getting off easy.

„Why should I care?“ Leonie asked him. Kurt paused and stared at her with scrunched eyebrows. „About getting into shape? I wasn’t even in good shape before the Nation.“

Kurt shrugged. „It’s my lifestyle. Besides, it makes your life better.“

„You’ve always been skinny but buff?“

He made a face. „I was an acrobat as a kid, dear. In a circus. Before I joined the X-Men. Entertainment and physical fitness has been my lifestyle since I can remember. ‘Skinny but buff’ is my natural physique.“

Leonie’s eyes frisked Kurt’s form with a fair share of skepticism across her face. „You must feel imprisoned, is that not so?“ she commented lowly.

Kurt’s eyes flicked away. Words caught in his throat. He felt like this voice would betray the visage he’d worked so hard to put up. Leonie understood his silence.

„I’m sorry,“ she said quietly. She finished her pace and sat down beside him, gently laying her head down on his shoulder that could bear the weight.

Kurt shook his head, throwing his chin from side to side. „Nah, dear, don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry about. Mistakes have consequences, and these are mine.“ He tossed her a toothy grin when she looked up to his face. „Besides, I’m making good progress. See!“ He nodded downwards to his toes and put all the effort he was capable of into wiggling them. It wasn’t that impressive of a display, and it did end up sending the worst pins and needles he’d ever felt shooting up his legs and spine, but he still managed to wiggle his toes with the power of thought.

„How do you stay so positive?“ Leonie asked him. His impressive display didn’t seem to faze her. She still felt down.

Taken a little aback, Kurt subtly pulled away and used his good hand to lift up her chin. The angle made it awkward, and it put a lot of strain on his back, but he continued to shove down the pain as if it didn’t exist. „Because when I do not have strength for myself, I ask for strength from Him.“

„Him?“ Leonie echoed. „God? You’re religious?“

Kurt nodded once. „I have a lot to pay back for this,“ he said.

„I think, without you, I would have died in that puddle in Berlin,“ Leonie commented. She slid her chin off his fingers and looked away.

„I don’t believe you give yourself enough credit,“ Kurt said. „Besides, our relationship now is incredibly codependent. If you can support the two of us physically, I’m more than happy to support us emotionally.“

„You’ve had a lot of practice,“ she said flatly.

Kurt scrunched his brows together briefly. Confused. But he let it pass. „I find that it isn’t helpful to dwell on what you cannot fix,“ he told her. „Of course, I’m not perfect in this, but that is why I have my faith. And when you see others struggle as you have done, and you reach out to help, that is God’s way of helping through you.“

„That’s your way to feel better about yourself,“ Leonie nearly snapped. She sheepishly rose to her feet before Kurt could react. „Sorry. That was uncalled for.“

„You do not have the best relationship –“

„I don’t have any relationship with God, Kurt. I’m atheist. There’s no God that could allow such destruction to happen to his disciples. When you do something, you do it for yourself. Even if you think you’re doing it for others, it’s ultimately for yourself.“

Kurt opened his mouth, dumbfounded.

„Sorry. I think I need some air.“

She swiveled on her heel and stalked out of the cabin, throwing the chair holding the door aside with a little more force than necessary. The door hung open on its frame with nothing to hold it closed. Leonie was out of sight.

„Well, shit,“ Kurt whispered to himself. He would have never expected Leonie to react in such a way. In fact, he wasn’t quite sure what had just transpired.

It was something that he would have to deal with later. He didn’t have the resources to follow her and help calm her down. When she returned, Kurt would give her his undivided attention. Until then, he’d work on himself.

Fortunately for Kurt, the one up side of Leonie leaving him to his own devices while working his muscles in his legs, was that he didn’t have to cover any of the grimaces he was sure to make. Every movement hurt in ways he didn’t expect. Sometimes the pain didn’t even seem to correlate with what he was doing.

For the most part, Kurt wasn’t sure if what he was doing was even necessary. He knew that he lost a lot of muscle. First when the Nation rose and he didn’t have the means to get proper meals in any longer. Second when he started sitting around like a couch potato. But he wasn’t entirely sure if trying to move while his back was healing was beneficial. If he stretched, would that give him a leg up later? Would simple static exercises help him heal any better? Kurt had broken his leg once, but losing any and all feeling was a completely new experience.

He refused to give in to panic and what-ifs. Kurt would do his best and hope for the best. At the moment, that was all he could do.

The winter wind blew in heavily through the front door, straight across the kitchen area, and through the bedroom threshold. The fire thrashed wildly in the fireplace with every new gust, as the oxygen breathed life into its dying flames. Kurt knew the fire was choking out as it ate through the last remnants of log from earlier while Leonie was outside. For the moment, he ignored it. He ignored the goose bumps under his fur as he stretched, even though they got worse with every blast of cold air. He ignored his thoughts, his worries, and his concerns. He focused only on his stretches, wishing with every new position that he’d feel the strain more fully. Some stretches he still couldn’t feel at all.

Eventually, Leonie’s voice carried over the whistling wind again. Kurt leaned forward in bed to watch as she pushed the door shut against the frame, pushing the chair with her hip to keep it in place. „Kurt?“ she asked tentatively.

„Yes, dear?“ Kurt asked back.

„I’m sorry. That was childish.“ She looked away and blew a laugh threw her nose. „Maybe that’s why you treat me like a child.“

„Excuse me. I do not,“ he said defensively.

Leonie’s eyes flicked over his again. „Sorry. I just … the way I grew up, and then the things that happened with the Nation, I could never believe in some omniscient benevolent figure. I don’t know why it makes me mad to think that someone still does, especially when he finds goodness in himself because of that figure. I shouldn’t have gotten mad and stormed out, Kurt.“

Kurt motioned to her to come closer. „I understand, dear. You don’t need to apologize.“ He smiled softly. „And I won’t bring it up again. That doesn’t offend me.“ Gone were the days where Kurt could pretend to be God’s disciple and spread God’s love. For now, God would have to settle with Kurt’s efforts to keep people alive.

„You’re not mad?“ she asked quietly. She hugged herself tightly, though Kurt couldn’t tell if it was to ward off the cold or to hold herself together against her insecurities.

He shook his head softly. „No. And not that I’m issuing a challenge here, but I would find it difficult for you to find something for me to get angry over.“ He motioned again for her to come closer. She hadn’t budged from her plot near the door.

„Do you get angry?“ Leonie asked in a stage whisper. She slowly crossed the kitchen into the bedroom doorway, where she stopped and leaned against the frame.

Kurt offered her a small smile, but not a worded reply. Unlike his indisputable best friend on the X-Men, Kurt was known less known for explosive anger, and more known for a playful fighting style. Kurt learned over the years how to use his enemy’s energy rather than rely on his own strength. For while Kurt was agile, he was not strong. Often times, jaunty words thrown about in battle worked as well as throwing fists, if not better. Crafty words and a judo-esque fighting style required a level head, so it was a calm reaction that Kurt developed.

Of course, when Kurt was met with horror and disdain for existing, it helped that Kurt didn’t immediately round on a misunderstanding human. Kurt couldn’t spend his energy hating and getting angry at every normal human being, or he’d be left exhausted and bitter at the end of the day. From an early age, Kurt learned to meet the haters with a smile and dip out before things got ugly. If he failed to do so, it wouldn’t be the first time Kurt would be met with fire and pitchforks. Cliché, but true.

„Are you cold?“ Kurt asked gently.

Leonie continued to hold herself in the doorway, her eyes focused on something beside Kurt. Her face was completely blank as thoughts undoubtedly whirred through her head.

„It’s practically arctic temperatures out there,“ Kurt continued. „I know you’re coming down from a workout, but that still has to be shocking to your system.“

Her eyes shifted to his other side, but she still didn’t respond.

Kurt sighed. „I can’t come to you, dear. I can hardly move from this spot.“ He eyed her a moment longer as she stood in place, unmoving. „And you look like you’re about to fall over. Would you like me to watch?“

She looked at him with a scowl before tucking it away with a chin thrust. „It’s been a long day,“ she sighed.

„I know. You’ve been a trooper,“ he congratulated her. He motioned again, a little more fervently than before. „Come here.“

Leonie yawned largely and finally pushed herself toward him, nearly collapsing onto his sitting form. Kurt scooped her closer with his arms, and then used the weight of his upper half to pull her down with him to the mattress. She squeaked in protest, but instead of pulling away, she simply made herself more comfortable. Turning inwards, she pressed her face into his chest, holding his exposed side firmly in her hand.

„You’re warm,“ she mumbled. „And soft.“

Kurt chuckled and squeezed his eyes shut in a big grin. Whatever Leonie’s problems were in the day, he felt like he’d won. And when Kurt won, he didn’t view it as a feud of her versus him, but helping her win over her own darkness.

Leonie shifted again so that her face wasn’t as close to his skin. „Kurt?“

„Hmm?“ he asked. He didn’t bother to open his eyes or wipe the smile from his face.

She ran her hand down his side, pausing where she knew he couldn’t feel it as well anymore. „Are you still sticking to those morals?“

Kurt’s expression returned to neutral and he opened his eyes to gauge her expression. Pleading?

„So it’s true that I’m younger than you. By, like, ten years or something. But I’m not an idiot hormone driven fifteen year-old, either. And … and it’s true that you were my hero because you were in Excalibur back when I was a young teen.“ She squirmed a little, her hand releasing his side. „But you know you’re more than that now, right? I know who you are as a person, now, not just a hero that the media portrays.“

Kurt moved his right hand to her cheek, petting it with his thumb. „Dear, I know where you’re going with this.“

„I sure hope so.“

He had to stifle a grin. „You know, would the circumstances be different, I wouldn’t have hesitated to sweep you off your feet.“

„Kurt, you already have. In every way except the clincher.“

That gave Kurt pause.

„I swear, you go out of your way to make me swoon and then you deny me simply because you claim a moral high ground. You want it, too.“

„I do not flirt!“

„Quatsch!“

„What?“ Kurt didn’t have to feign his surprise. He truly didn’t feel like he perpetuated her misinterpretations of their interactions.

„You flirt in everything you do,“ Leonie said firmly. She pointedly looked down at their entwined forms. „You can’t do shit like that and then tell me you’re better than the next man because I’m too young for you and you know better than me. So fucking what if you would have passed me by because I was too young for you two years ago, when the world was normal. That’s not the case now. You know me and you flirt with me on the daily. Now own up to it.“

Kurt stared open-mouthed at her for a long moment. „Shit,“ he muttered quietly.

„Yeah?“ Leonie wasn’t angry. None of her words came out too forcefully. But Kurt knew that she wasn’t messing around, and she wouldn’t allow him to in this instance, either. Kurt either had to owe her an apology and quit everything he’d been doing since Germany … or he’ have to open himself up further for her. Let the flirting lead to something.

It was the very thing he’d feared since he’d rescued her off the streets. As soon as he learned that she knew about him beforehand, and actually looked up to him, he should have known that he’d have to figure something out. Instead, he’d let himself act too comfortably, and ended up in what he thought would be an uncomfortable situation.

Except this time, the confrontation wasn’t uncomfortable. Kurt didn’t feel pressure, like he did when Leonie brought up sex a few weeks prior. He wanted to give up the charade he was playing out for himself. He wanted to explore this new world. And he knew that in doing so, he couldn’t mess it up. Leonie was giving Kurt everything. Kurt wanted to give her everything, too.

„Shit,“ he repeated.

„What?“

„I have been fooling myself, haven’t I?“ How long? Kurt wondered. When did his intentions switch from excusing himself from getting closer to her because he wanted to have that little bit of distance to closing off his desire because he knew that the relationship would have been questionable before the rise of the Nation? This time, Leonie bringing it up sparked a true desire. Not a maybe. Not an if. A simple light to his lust. A lust that Kurt could never kill.

Leonie lifted her brows minutely in surprise. „Just like that? You give up on your ‘I can’t because I’m Christian and it’s wrong’ mentality?“

Kurt’s stomach knotted. Not for fear of what he saw for the future, but because of his mixed messages of the past. This was his wake-up call. The fulcrum in his life with Leonie. He didn’t know how long his life would be, or how fantastic it would be in comparison with his life as a superhero, but it could still be exciting if he played his cards right. „Are you complaining?“ Kurt asked with a toothy grin.

„Absolutely not.“ She shifted again, scooting up so that their faces were more level. „This doesn’t mean that you’ll dump your gentlemanly attitude or anything, right?“

Kurt’s grin widened. „No. I’ve been completely me, no charade. With your insistence, and your permission, you simply learn more about me.“

„Sexy habits,“ Leonie murmured as she scooted her hips closer to his.

He chuckled through his smile. „Leonie, you’re sure? You’re not just lonely, this won’t just be a fad? I can’t afford to lose you if this turns out to be a mistake.“ That was Kurt’s major holdback. By introducing a new factor into their relationship, he was positive he’d lose her. She’d try and venture into the great Canadian world and leave his crippled body behind.

„I’m more sure about this than leaving Germany,“ she affirmed.

„Remember, I’m … I’m still broken since the accident. I’ve gotten better, but –“

Leonie snaked her arm from underneath herself to his lips and pressed her thumb lightly against them. „Are you sure, Mr. Morals?“ she asked. „In all my pleading, I never thought you’d have an epiphany like that.“

„I’ve had thirty years to get to know myself,“ Kurt said. Leonie’s hand drifted back down to the sheets. „Unfortunately, in this, you read me better than I read myself. Years ago, I was much more impulsive. Funny that the past couple years of isolation would beat the impulsiveness rather than feed it.“

„You’re thirty?“ Leonie asked, shocked.

„Am I too old for you now?“ Kurt asked airily. What luck would that be – allowing himself to reconstruct his morals to match the situation only to be rejected off of his previous morals. He should feel like a shitty human for reconstructing them in the first place. Morals weren’t to be meddled with. Yet in this situation, realizing he was exacerbating her frustrations rather than putting up a solid barrier, the decision felt right. He’d been expending efforts to keep himself from crossing the barrier himself lately.

„No. I just thought you were a little younger.“

„I was twenty-two when Excalibur formed, dear.“

„Oh, wow.“

„ _That_ was not to be your focus.“

„If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t expect to be shacked up with a thirty year-old man before I turned twenty and fall in love with him when my girlfriends and I would talk about boys in school.“

Kurt closed his eyes and threw his head back. „Dear God, what did I get myself into this time?“ he mumbled. He hoped the sarcasm went through well enough to keep from offending her.

„Well, it sounds like you’re not lying to yourself anymore,“ Leonie said cheekily.

Kurt eyed her with a raised brow. „Oh yeah? Like you knew all along?“

„Dude, you brought me along on a plane ride to Canada because you felt sorry for me?“

„I know I wasn’t blocking out lewd thoughts in Germany. And our destination was not Canada.“

„Sorry. New York. My American geography sucks, but I think you missed by a little bit.“

„Shh. We’re over that.“

„Don’t think I didn’t miss you saying ‘lewd thoughts,’ my sir.“ Her tone demanded an explanation.

The side of Kurt’s mouth tweaked up in a half smile. „You’re awfully chatty now, dear.“

„Excuse me for being happy for the first time today,“ Leonie said with an eye roll.

„Happy over a simple admission?“ Kurt’s hand, still resting gently on the side of her neck, pressed tighter against her skin at this question. He felt Leonie’s breath hitch.

„Finally making you realize that you were acting stupid,“ she said. Her voice was a little less firm now. More excited.

„Now is not the time you want to insult me, dear,“ Kurt chided.

Leonie’s eyes grew wide. „W-why?“

„Because, despite your feisty words, you won’t dare make the first move.“ Now that Kurt was talking in her favor, he sensed her nervousness. She was excited, true, but he could tell that she didn’t know what to do now. Kurt allowed it to draw out for his own amusement. Leonie’s silence reinforced Kurt’s inference. He supposed it would be nerve wracking to throw oneself at an older, more experienced man, when one’s only experience was that of a nasty Nation man that called all of the shots. „Insult me, and I might not do this.“

Leonie shivered against Kurt’s hand as he pulled her closer, bringing her lips to his. Even with all of her talk, all of her jabs, she almost acted as if she were scared to finally partake in what she most likely dreamt about the past couple months as they shared the cabin in isolation. She was hesitant to kiss back at first, and Kurt almost pulled away, thinking that she had changed her mind. But, when Kurt relieved some pressure on the back of her head, she got over herself. She pressed herself up against him, taking his lips in her own. She fell back shortly after, her breathing already heavier.

„Liebchen?“ Again, Kurt worried if it was a mistake.

A wide smile spread across her face as she turned back to him. „Was that so bad?“ she asked him.

Kurt snickered.


	12. Chapter 12

Romance. Romance in a world of pain and fear. It was the last thing that Kurt had expected. Since breaking off from the X-Men and getting a one way plane ticket to Germany before the airlines were shut down, Kurt thought that he had left a personable life behind. He knew what he was signing up for.

Kurt didn’t like being alone. He had never been alone before, and he hated the idea of isolation in current or future life. Yet, for the good of the world, he singlehandedly chose a sequestered life. It slowly killed him inside. Oft times, a small part of Kurt almost yearned for the Nation to make a move simply so that Kurt could jump in and play the hero. Kurt reveled in attention.

Maybe Kurt should have expected things to go the way that they did once he found Leonie. He should have known that he wouldn’t easily give Leonie up to be alone again. Someone recognized him, spoke his mother tongue, and he wasn’t lonesome any longer.

Then her personality came to light. Once she was no longer scared for her life, once she was no longer at the stoop of death’s door, once she was no longer afraid of Kurt’s near-celebrity status, Leonie let herself be Leonie. She was sassy, she was strong, and she was very determined.

He didn’t stand a chance. It didn’t matter the setting: the place, the situation, nor the age gap. Kurt didn’t stand a chance against himself. Against his nature. He should have treated Leonie akin to Kitty –

Kurt couldn’t think about Kitty. Since his drunken blackout night after freeing the slaves, Kurt did his best to keep those feelings out. Another time, he kept telling himself. He mourned the one night, and then shut it off. Every time a passing thought of Kitty did come up, a part of Kurt’s mind more toward the surface would flag and tell him that what he was doing was wrong, but he suppressed it all. The Nation gave no time for mourning. Especially the type of mourning Kitty deserved.

While a rational part of Kurt knew that he was doing himself and Kitty an injustice by ignoring his grief, Kurt expected that same rational part to scold his more impulsive tendencies in his relationship with Leonie. But it didn’t.

Kurt fought so long and hard with himself about developing any feelings more than friendship with Leonie. He denied not only himself, but Leonie’s wishes. He figured that, with the great moral dilemma, he’d feel guilty for finally surrendering. But there was no guilt.

In fact, Kurt couldn’t have been happier. He almost felt like he were living a real, human life with Leonie in the middle of the great Canadian winter.

He even gave her a way out at first. A part of it was that he was concerned that, due to his spinal injury, he was impotent. It wasn’t exactly something he wanted to learn. He felt that if he whispered her promises of a good night, and couldn’t get it up, he’d be disappointing her almost as much as he would himself. He also wanted to make sure that, despite her pleading, she truly wasn’t making a mistake.

So for the first night, he kissed her to sleep. The girl was exhausted after the shoveling and the day of working out anyway.

The days following, however, weren’t so innocent. The pair had endless time on their hands and a whole new level of their relationship to explore.

Kurt was the first to awake after Leonie’s busy day. It didn’t happen often. Leonie liked to be up and moving, usually having left the cabin before Kurt started stirring. To do whatever it was that she did all day. Sometimes she would talk about it. Other times, she left him guessing.

Leonie used the side of Kurt’s stomach as a pillow, her closest arm draped across his hips. From there, Kurt didn’t have the line of sight nor the proper sensation to make out exactly how she slept. Having gotten used to the slower life without much movement, Kurt contented himself with gently petting Leonie’s hair to pass the time. Her hair was gnarled and knotty, so he couldn’t dig his fingers into the strands, but that didn’t bother him. Leonie tried her best to keep her hair tamed, and even took the scissors she used on Kurt’s hair to chop it to a shorter length, but she didn’t have any tools to help her out. Her method of brushing was simply running her fingers through the knots until they dissipated.

It didn’t take long for her to stir to Kurt’s touch. She stretched her limbs long before twisting to groggily look at his face. „Kurt.“

„Guten Morgen meine Liebling.“

She nestled more snuggly against his side, rubbing her cheek into his skin. „Last night – it actually happened, right?“ she mumbled sleepily. „I wasn’t dreaming?“

Kurt couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face. „Hmm? You getting me to admit that I’m too much of a flirt for my own good?“

Leonie giggled and shifted again, pulling herself a little closer to his face. „For you to admit that you’re a tease.“ She poked him in the side with the hand trapped underneath her body. „You still are.“

„Doch. You were too tired for anything last night.“ He switched his free hand to her shoulder, petting it up and down in soft touches.

„I believe that’s up for me to decide.“

„You fell asleep!“

Leonie snickered and lifted herself off of his chest just enough to shift her leg over his body, straddling him. Kurt felt the pressure of her weight on his thighs. He could feel specifically where she touched him. She leaned down, propping her elbows on either side of his body so that their faces were inches apart. The weight lifted slightly off the top of his thighs, but he could still feel the pressure of her legs against his on the sides. It was such a dramatic improvement, but so far from okay.

For the most part, Kurt felt exceedingly useless. His left arm was still wrapped up in a sling so that he didn’t forget to keep it still. Leonie gingerly avoided putting any pressure on it, even half asleep. His legs could feel pressure and most touch, all the way down to his toes, but he still couldn’t move anything. His tail had minimal sensation. His ribs still protested larger movements and heavier pressures, but were definitely more tolerable than when he was fighting every breath. He had his right arm at his disposal, and that was about it. How could Leonie want anything from him when he couldn’t actually do anything?

Dark thoughts. Leonie pushed them aside. Kurt could have succumbed to them. Yet Leonie’s attentions pulled his thoughts in a different direction.

„I get the feeling you’re still scared.“

„Me? No, not at the idea. Scared I’ll disappoint you? Absolutely.“

„How could you disappoint me, Nightcrawler?“

„Nightcrawler?“ He perked an eyebrow. Leonie hadn’t used his hero name in ages. Kurt found it odd for her to bring it up now.

She shrugged. „You’re my hero. My, um, only friend. And even if you’re too uncomfortable to be my lover, those won’t change.“

„Again. Not uncomfortable. Not scared of the idea.“

Leonie leaned closer. „Then what is it?“

„I hardly have feeling down there, dear. I don’t know if I’m even capable of what you want….“

She smiled. „So? There are other ways to be intimate.“

„Is that so?“ Kurt asked her cheekily.

„I read a lot of … stories before the internet fell,“ Leonie snickered.

„My God. You were a sex slave and you have no experience in intimacy?“

„That about sums it up.“

„Then I apologize ahead of time for what will be a very lackluster performance.“

„A really lackluster performance if all you’ll do is talk.“

Kurt’s eyes widened for a moment. He was certain that until Leonie was more comfortable in her new role, she wouldn’t make the first move. She was conditioned against it. Especially if the only experience she had in this field was a totalitarian man that bought her existence into his life. Her taunting behavior the night before and immediately upon waking up was the furthest she would go. Until he initiated the interaction.

„Remember what I said about insulting me?“ Kurt asked. A toothy grin leaked across his face, wide enough to show his fangs.

„And then you kissed me.“

Kurt didn’t want to hold any power over her. That wasn’t his goal. Technically, by softly threatening her about her jabbing insults to provoke him into action, he took away some of her power. So of course, he couldn’t actually carry through.

„That time.“ His grin didn’t fade.

Especially in this moment, Kurt hated his body. He hated that he felt trapped within it. While Kurt didn’t have the extreme claustrophobia that his friend Ororo had, he had a severe problem with personal physical handicaps. He was an incredibly tactile man, with a goal to give Leonie a pleasurable experience, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to make those ends meet. His mind wandered, playing fears, concerns, and limitations.

„Kurt?“ Leonie’s voice brought him back.

„Huh?“

„What happened? Where did you mind go?“

Kurt winced. He’d dropped his smile in his mulling and stopped paying attention to anything outside of his thoughts. Something like the episodes he’d have to pull Leonie out of after a particularly trying event.

„You are second guessing yourself!“ she exclaimed, pulling back into a sitting position.

„Shut up,“ Kurt muttered. „Those are your insecurities. We’re going in circles. Quit it.“ She was still taken aback. Possibly more so than before. He sighed. „Listen. I respect you and will not lie to you, but I am physically broken … and I’ve never been this broken before. It’s difficult to handle, even though I’ve had over a month to come to terms.“

„You’ve never shut down like this before,“ Leonie argued meekly. „Since the crash.“

Kurt winced again at the thought of her unspoken before: the night of Kitty’s death. He must move on. „Don’t go there,“ he whispered. „Please.“

Leonie cast her eyes downward. She didn’t mean to open festering wounds. It wasn’t her fault that Kurt hadn’t started the healing process in that particular aspect of his life. „I’m sorry,“ she apologized, just as quietly as Kurt’s plea.

Kurt didn’t acknowledge her apology, but he did accept it readily. She didn’t know how deep of a wound that was. In fact, she hardly knew anything about the depths of Kurt’s experiences. Sure, she knew a lot of his public history, but Kurt didn’t touch on the more emotional pieces of his past. He talked about the circus and his role as an acrobat in his childhood, but not of when the circus was sold and he was shifted into becoming the circus’s centerpiece in the freak show. He talked about his role in Excalibur and the X-Men, but not his relations with his teammates nor of the adventures he faced outside of the public eye. He talked about how he watched over the streets in Germany after the rise of the Nation, but he failed to mention how he broke ties with the X-Men in order to do so. He didn’t touch on the death and destruction that he couldn’t prevent between the lives he thought he was saving. On the surface, Kurt appeared to be an open book, but he never touched at the insurmountable words between the lines.

Leonie was beginning to catch on to Kurt’s ability to talk without actually saying anything. She was going to start asking questions, and Kurt found himself wanting to start sharing. But not now. Now, he was ruining a moment.

„Will you come back to me?“ Kurt asked. He reached up with his good hand, but didn’t have the strength to stretch far enough to her face. Leonie obliged slowly, resuming her position over top his torso, her forearms holding her weight beside his arms.

„Kurt?“

A flicker of confusion across his face. Her voice was saddened.

„Why don’t you tell me things?“

„What do you mean?“ Kurt asked. He knew exactly what she meant. He knew that she was beginning to read him so well, he couldn’t hide anything anymore, even if it was for her own good. Why did he have so much to hide? To make her happy in a dystopian world? It was a charade.

„You’re fearful. You don’t even deny it. So you’re not afraid of _us_. I don’t think you ever were. You were afraid of what you would do to me? Am I right? And now, you’re afraid that if you let me know everything, you’ll push me away or something? You’ll scare me? Kurt, I still love the idea of having sex with a man I trust. But do you trust me at all?“

The words stung, despite their intention. Leonie only wished to understand. „With my life,“ he told her. Not too quickly, but very earnestly.

„So why do you keep secrets?“

Kurt couldn’t get away from her questions. Her face was inches from his and his only method of getting away would be to teleport away. His mutant power wasn’t the answer to this situation. His pouting effectively ruined the moment.

„Don’t you dare say that you keep things from me to protect me. Like you wouldn’t contemplate sex to protect me,“ Leonie continued after his hesitation. „I don’t need protection from _you._ “

„Believe it or not, this is kind of new territory for me,“ he said. „I can’t be the swashbuckling hero I used to be, even if I wanted to. Maybe a lot of the heroing from my younger years was only for attention. But that’s not my relationship with you, darling. I’ve always covered things up – the darker things even I didn’t want to acknowledge – with flamboyance and pranks. That’s actually not new. Just the method of how it’s done.“

„You know, a part of intimacy is sharing those secrets,“ she said.

„Oh? And I know everything about you?“

„Pretty much.“ She grinned, a glint of devilishness in her eye. „Besides, I have a lot less history than you, old man.“

„Forgive me! What did you just call me?“

„I guess your days of pranks and jokes are over, sir. You’re just an old man.“

„Oh no!“ Kurt mustered as much strength as he could in his core to push his back off the bed and twist, pushing her over on to her side. While he couldn’t enlist the full help of his left arm, he broke a rule just enough to continue rolling so that he was the one on top. He had to hold himself off of her with only the strength of his right arm, and he couldn’t be entirely sure how much dead weight his legs presented to her, especially since he couldn’t arrange them to benefit his balance, but he was more than satisfied in his pin. „You don’t get to go calling me an old man!“

Leonie’s expression was pure surprise. At his mock outrage, however, she burst into giggles.

„You planned this, you little pain in the ass,“ Kurt griped in good nature. She couldn’t have accounted for his determination in holding her down, but she wanted to bring back a happier Kurt.

„No! You’re heavy.“ She pushed lightly on his chest, even though he’d left plenty of room for her to breathe.

„Good.“ With both hands available, he would have resorted to tickling. It was an old pastime of his. She was lucky that, even though he could use that arm to roll, his hand was too wrapped up for the subtler deed of tickling.

„Are you happy up there?“

Kurt grinned. The same grin from before his thoughts wandered to somewhere more ominous. „Yes.“

Leonie grunted and pushed a little harder on his chest. „You’re crushing me,“ she complained.

„Doch,“ he replied cheerfully. Most of his weight wasn’t even on her. He held up the majority of his upper torso with his good arm, and his hips being unable to follow the rest of his body for lack of strength were still to her side. For the most part, she had to worry about half of his lower torso crushing her. Not enough to actually cause her pain. But he’d let her worry.

She wiggled, but was unable to get out from under him. „Why?“ she whined. She didn’t actually sound too worried.

„The insults!“ Kurt said. „You not only called me an old man this morning, you also implied I’m boring.“

„You know, most people think words like ‘asshole’ and ‘weakling’ are insults. And you’re trying for that asshole description!“

„Oh, my unfortunate lady,“ Kurt said with no sort of sincerity, „you have no idea.“

„No idea of what?“ Alarm sparked across her face.

„What I’m capable of, when I have the means.“ He leaned in a little closer, bringing his face inches from hers. Now he’d have to pay attention to her breathing to make sure he wasn’t actually crushing her. Even though both were thin, he still outweighed her by a few dozen pounds.

„Wh-what?“ Finally, the worry Kurt wished to incite.

Kurt relieved the pressure of his weight from her, rolling on to his side again. His legs were in a better position to keep him propped up like this. Even so, he kept his good arm wrapped across her middle. Whether he kept his hand close to pull her closer or to further prove that he could be an asshole was up in the air. „You have known me most of your life, is that so?“ Leonie nodded, now confused. „And you have only known me personally for a couple months.“ He poked her gently in the side with his two fingertips. „You don’t know everything. I am, in fact, very proud that I am not a boring old man.“

Leonie twisted under his arm to her side, so that they were forehead to forehead. „I want to get to know you more,“ she said.

Kurt slowly stroked up and down her side, petting her softly. „Tell me, when you followed my adventures with Excalibur in your … preteens? My God,“ he added in a whisper to himself, struck again by their age gap. „Why choose me? Why is that the most exciting thing a young girl could do? Follow a demonic superhero’s career?“

„You were cool,“ she said with a shrug.

„Really? I was cool?“

She shrugged again, squirming a little to his touch. Toward his touch. „We didn’t have a whole lot of European superheroes. I wanted to be just like you. I wanted super powers so that I could fight bad guys, too.“

„Wouldn’t Captain Britain be a better choice of idol?“ Leonie mentioned that personalities weren’t included in their descriptions, which was to be expected. No one stuck around for interviews. Captain Britain had a nasty temper to him … but he was a strong, muscled hot shot.

Leonie poked Kurt softly in the breastbone. „I don’t know. My friends and I, we’d pretend we were like you guys in the schoolyard. Not specifically you guys. Just superheroes, you know? But I really followed your group. You, Captain Britain, Meggan, Phoenix, Shadowcat….“ Kurt couldn’t help his twitch at Kitty’s codename, but Leonie didn’t seem to notice. „My friends outgrew it as we got older. But I didn’t. And like I said, you really stuck out with your … skin.“

„Fur.“

„I know that now.“ She continued to brush her fingers against his chest. Her eyes followed her hand as it moved over his fuzzy muscles, dodging the sling’s supports. „So yeah. I read about your group when you were in Europe. I knew who you were because you’re a little difficult to forget. Not to hurt your pride or whatever, but I watch Excalibur more than I watched you specifically. Because I wanted to make the team when I got older.“

„You know, Excalibur didn’t start out on the best of terms.“

„What do you mean?“

„We thought the other X-Men were dead. This was right after the massacre in the Morlock Tunnels. Piotr, Kitty, and I were gravely injured; I couldn’t teleport right forever. We linked up with Brian – Captain Britain – and Meggan when we were better. At least, Kitty and I did. We were helping Rachel fight her demons and decided to make a team.“

„So Kitty … you knew her a long time.“

Kurt grimaced more than smiled. „A very long time. Please, sweetheart. That’s an unhealed wound yet.“

„Sorry. Sometimes it seems weird to me that you’re so … vulnerable.“

„Thanks,“ Kurt said flatly.

„Besides the legs thing,“ Leonie added quickly.

„Many thanks,“ Kurt said, just as deadpan.

„No, listen! It’s refreshing when you are so vulnerable. It makes you less toxic male, more human.“

„Are you sure you’re making me feel better, dear?“

A mild panic, mixed with a dose of confusion, mixed across Leonie’s face. „I swear, these are compliments.“

„I know,“ Kurt sighed. „Just not entirely comforting with how useless I am beyond an emotional bounce board.“

„You’re not useless,“ Leonie said firmly. „Buuut I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be happy if you did get complete use of your legs back and you could do some of the work.“

„Believe me, you’re not the only one,“ Kurt muttered. „I’m going stir crazy!“ He continued petting her side, his eyes unfocused and his thoughts wandering. „What other things did you do before this whole mess?“ he asked her.

„I don’t know. Not a whole lot. I was pretty boring, as far as teenagers are.“

„Really? No clubs or sports?“

„Nope. You know how it was just me and my mom, right? I think I told you that. I never knew my dad. Well, it was hardly me and my mom. She was almost never home. I really could have done whatever I wanted, because no one was around to tell me that I couldn’t. I just didn’t. Partying didn’t sound fun. Following superheroes so close, I knew the streets were dangerous. So I kind of just stayed home all the time. Learned how to cook because of it,“ she added with a snort. „And I was really good at finding what I wanted on the internet. That’s kind of moot, now.“

Kurt found himself wearing a frown. No parental figures. It was a wonder that Leonie was as good natured as she was. Even Kurt had Margoli to set him straight when he got too rambunctious. „How could she just leave you alone like that?“ he asked.

Leonie shrugged with her exposed shoulder. „I dunno. Didn’t really matter to me, you know? It’s how I grew up. I learned how to clean up after myself really early, or I’d actually get yelled at when my mom was home. I learned how to cook or I’d starve some days. At least my mom kept food in the house. She didn’t actually pay for internet. I don’t even remember how I got a hold of that anymore.“

Kurt’s fingers migrated to Leonie’s face, his thumb softly stroking his cheek. „Dear, even I didn’t have to grow up that fast. My foster mother found me in the river as a baby, and I don’t think my childhood can compare to the loneliness of yours.“

„You feed off of attention, though,“ Leonie reminded him. „I don’t. I’m perfectly fine by myself.“ She blinked, as if what Kurt said finally processed. „You were found in the river as a baby?“ she repeated, flabbergasted.

„Ja.“

„Oh. My. How - ?“

Kurt traced her jaw with his thumb. His entire mind wasn’t on the conversation; it still wandered. „From what I’ve learned upon meeting my biological mother, mostly because it was a convenient means to an end.“

„You know your biological mom after getting thrown into a river?“

„Ja.“

„How …? How does this not enrage you?“

„Maybe it did years ago. Considering who she is, I can probably never truly forgive her, but what’s done is done. I had a good childhood, despite it all. Well, until my circus was bought out. But _that_ ,“ Kurt said, his voice finally lending emotion to his words, „is not a topic for the day.“

„You’re going to just drop that on me and move on?“

„Ja,“ Kurt said.

„But I want to know these things,“ Leonie whined.

„Tough. I have a lot of history to recap and I don’t have the patience to unload it now. It’s not something I usually bring up.“

„You say you’re from a circus all the time.“

„Well, that’s the happy bit.“

„What do you mean you don’t have patience?“ she asked suspiciously.

„I mean exactly what I say.“ His fingers teased from the side of her neck into the nape of her neck. „No patience for reiterating my life.“

Leonie squirmed, clearly torn. She knew where Kurt’s mind was leading, but she so desperately wanted to know how he’d gotten to where he was now. She wanted to know what made him become the superhero he was. Her life dream was to become one. Failing that, she wished to meet one. Now, she was shacked up with someone she’d followed for at least seven years of her life. He was no longer just an idol. Now, he was so close to becoming her lover. Which led again to the fact that she knew where Kurt was heading with his current actions.

„Eventually?“ she prompted hopefully.

„No promises.“

While that response disappointed Leonie, Kurt in the present did not. He pulled her into a kiss to which she happily reciprocated. Her body pressed tighter against him and her arm free of her weight slid around his arm. Kurt smiled into the kiss, pleased with his distraction. Her reaction.

Today, this would be about her. Today, he wouldn’t worry about his incomplete lack of feeling from his naval down. There were other ways to please a lady, after all.

His hand once again pet her down her side. Slowly, teasingly, erratically. She whined as his touch reached the more sensitive parts of her body. When he pleased her, she pulled his arm tighter, her fingers digging into his flesh. It made for an easy way to gauge his effectiveness. If something he did elicited less of a response, he’d move on.

Leonie couldn’t get enough. She’d never had such focused treatment before. The man that bought her in Germany didn’t care about how she felt. So long as she carried out her duties, he couldn’t much care for her. He certainly wouldn’t try to please her like Kurt. Whenever Leonie tried to reciprocate, to learn Kurt’s body or even reach where she wasn’t sure he’d feel, he’d stop her. He’d instantly grab her hand or her wrist and guide her hand elsewhere.

She didn’t stop to ask him why. He’d already explained his fears. But he wasn’t as open about his guilt. And guilt he felt. He felt guilt for leading her on and denying her, without even realizing he was doing it. He felt guilt for bringing her to Canada and dumping all the responsibilities on to her. He felt guilty for things he didn’t even do: that she was a sex toy for a Nation man because he was affluent and she was not. For that guilt, he’d make sure he’d do everything he physically could for her. And Leonie didn’t seem to mind in the least.


End file.
